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THE PICTURE ON THE 
WALL 


BY 

J. Bbeckenbidge Ellis 
Author of 

“Pban,” “Lahoma,” “His Deab Unintended,” etc. 



Kansas City, Missouri 

BURTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 

PUBLISHBRS 



Copyrighted 1920 By 

BURTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Kansas City, Missouri 

All Rights Reserved, 


OCT lU 


0)CIA624733 


y' 


TO 

MY MOTHEE 

I love the brook’s vague, shadowy refrain, 

The birdsongs after rain, 

The shrill, glad cry when children are at play. 
Doves calling down the curtain of the day, 
The wind’s soft footsteps in the darkening 
lane. 

But with one sound none other may compare 
In melody of air. 

Its lingering cadence, falling on the ear. 
Soothes the tired brain, drives off the phantom 
Fear 

And leaves the benediction of a prayer. 

In younger days, all Nature’s sounds seemed 
blent 

In sure accompaniment 
To high ambition’s song. Then if I heard 
The sea’s hoarse roar or the leaves by zepher 
stirred 

I soared in dreams — wings to my feet 
were lent. 

Gone now their power that once my fancy led 
To castles overhead. 

But, oh, there is no change in that dear voice, 
Unflawed by age, which makes my heart re- 
joice 

As when it sang beside my trundle-bed. 


. ...... 







I 


CONTENTS 


Chapter 

I. The Plotters 9 

II. The Plot 15 

III. Concealment 21 

IV. Flight 28 

V. The Escape 35 

VI. Bettie to the Rescue 42 

VII. At the Door 48 

VIII. The Claimant 62 

IX. Accepted as the Heir 60 

X. John Accounts for Himself 64 

XI. Does He Resemble the Picture? 70 

Xn. Something Has Happened 80 

XIII. Safe for the Present 85 

Xrv. Lucia in the Moonlight 90 

XV. The Broken Engagement 98 

XVT. Buried Treasure 103 

XVn. The Coming of Glaxton 116 

XVIII. Bettie Again to the Rescue 127 

XIX. The Jewels 138 

XX. The Polite Burglar 149 

XXI. Lucia on the River-Bluff 167 

XXII. Secrets 168 

XXIII. The Enemy’s Return 175 

XXIV. Glaxton’s Threat 182 

XXV. A Secret Conference 187 

XXVI. Bettie Once More to the Rescue 193 

XXVn. The Midnight Watcher 201 

XXVni. Lucia in the Garden 209 

XXIX. Virgie Dines Out 214 

XXX. The Hidden Money-Box 229 

XXXI. Lucia on the Wagon-Bridge 240 

XXXII. By Way of Post-iScript 247 



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THE PICTURE ON THE WALL 


CHAPTER I 

THE PLOTTERS 

Blearstead^s Eating House in Smiling Lane 
— one of the poorest and obscurest corners of 
the hilly city — had a reputation as malodor- 
ous as the neighborhood. It choked up the 
entrance to an alley, squat and swollen in 
size, with projecting props like an immense 
beetle that had tried to crawl down the nar- 
row passage of mouldy bricks and greasy 
boarding to the open space but had got caught 
and couldn’t stretch a leg. By midnight the 
habitues of the restaurant, men of rather ex- 
tensive notoriety and women of slender char- 
acter, had for the most part gambled, smoked 
and drunk their last cent and were ready to 
flit to goodness knows what foul nests till day- 
break; and by one in the morning Blearstead 
had turned the last fuddled wretch out of 
doors and bade his servitor close up for the 
night. 

One night in early March, just as the clock 
struck one, a stockily-built man with the face 
of a bulldog — small eyes, heavy jaws, square 
nose — came by appointment to hear the pro- 
prietor’s latest scheme of a quick cut to for- 
tune. He was Harve Cleek, a pugilist of local 
renown. Of these two, Blearstead was the 
leader and as young John passed to and fro at 
his duties of clearing the various small tables 
it was Blearstead who, with an air of author- 
ity, opened up the new project. Drawing from 


9 


10 


The Picture on the Wall 


his pocket a newspaper he opened it wide 
marking with a crooked finger the place where 
a ^^Sunday feature story’^ was built around a 
heavily-smeared photograph like a sea of print 
surrounding a desert island. 

^^Read that!’’ Blearstead commanded with 
suppressed excitement, his tall, powerfully 
built frame bent over the shiny table-top, his 
shock of white hair quivering as in a breeze, 
his sunken, over-colored face writhing its nose 
and lips in nervous spasms that sleep alone 
could subdue. 

With one of his most emphatic oaths, Cleek 
repudiated the idea of his reading the illus- 
trated article. “I ain’t come to pursoo liter- 
’toor. If you got any inside dope on cracking 
a house or lifting a fat leather, my name’s 
Cleek; but if you ain’t, it’s Fade Away.” 

These expressions did not appear singular 
to Blearstead, but he was irritated by oppo- 
sition and his voice became a growl : “Just look 
at the picture, will you? I ain’t asking you 
to use no brains. Just look at it good, then 
I’ll tell you what to say.” 

All the lights had been turned out except 
the gasjet in the corner of their retreat, and 
one other across the room above the partition 
door through which John was bearing, with 
graceful ease, stacks of dishes preposterously 
high. Cleek held the paper under the waver- 
ing flame of the comer light, stared hard at 
the likeness of a man of about thirty-three, 
then wrinkled his snub-nose inquiringly. “I 
have saw it; now tell me what to say.” 

Blearstead slyly pointed toward his assist- 
ant just then coming in from the other room 
empty-handed, followed by a grotesquely ex- 
aggerated shadow. The young man was softly 
whistling; his eyes looked far away. 


The Picture on the Wall 


11 


Cleek slowly nodded Ms bullet-head. 

‘^Do you get me?’^ the other insisted. 

“It^s easy/’ Cleek affirmed, “though the guy 
in the picture must have been caught and took 
considerable older in life.” 

“Of course,” Blearstead showed triumph, 
“seeing as John ain’t but about twenty-one 
and this here was took before he was born. 
Now, this piece is all wrote about what hap- 
pened twenty year ago,” he added, keeping the 
sidewise movements of his nose, and the work- 
ings of his mouth steadily going, “and deals 
with a couple — the picture is the male of it — 
in the millionaire class. They lived in Cali- 
fornia same as me only they wasn’t so well 
knowd for Fd been in the pen a time or two 
and my pictures everwheres, without me hav- 
ing to pay to get ’em on the front page.” 

“Well, go ahead. Old Vanity,” Cleek said 
with surly good-nature. 

“I got acquainted with their nursemaid and 
her and I fixed it up to kidnap the year-old 
baby; they was just the one kid, a boy. So 
we done; and things was as smooth as the 
sleeve-lining of a gent’s overcoat, I wrote sev- 
eral letters to the father, and he wrote to me, 
we was the regular little letter-writers, back 
and forth we come till all was set for him to 
leave me my pile at a certain spot. But right 
there is where the cops butted in — you know 
how they are always messing up a fellow’s 
plans, if they get a chance. There was nothing 
to do but skip for our lives. What become of 
the nursemaid I never knowd, but here’s me, 
talking to you.” 

“Having named no names — ” Cleek hinted. 

“I’ll name them names when you’re safe in 
with me on this.” 

“What become of the kid?” 


12 


The Picture on the Wall 


^When I see we was never to get a cent out 
of the kid on account of the cops making it 
so hot for us, I^d have left him on his pa’s 
doorstep only I’d have got nabbed. I’m as 
kind hearted a man as ever lived, but I proves 
my kindness on myself first. We fed the baby 
and kept him under cover till that nursemaid 
got the panic in her blood. She drowned him 
in the river, then told me afterwards. She 
knowd I’d never a-stood for it.” 

Cleek grinned hideously. ‘^Good thing you 
lost that soft heart of yourn. You wouldn’t 
be no-count in our business if you was like 
you use to be.” 

“She told me it was soon over — a toss from 
the cliff, a splash, and a weight to keep the 
body from washing up on the beach.” 

“That must have been a devil of a woman.” 
Cleek still smiled. 

“Well — ^what would you have done in her 
place?” 

Cleek started up, shoving the table to one 
side and his smile changed to a heavy-browed 
scowl. “What did you tell me for?” he rasped. 

During the three years of their intimacy, 
Blearstead had found him far from scrupu- 
lous. That he should at this critical juncture 
show disgust for crime roused intense indig- 
nation. 

“Hold on there !” Blearstead’s was the stern- 
ness of the master. “You and me are a little 
too thick to fall out. Sit down; I’ve told the 
worst there is. Get yourself ready and I’ll 
soon show you where you come in.” 

“I ain’t a-riding.” 

“You think you ain’t, but that’s just because 
you’re going so fast. This piece tells all about 
the abduction — hashing it up, you know, for 
readers of the present generation. It seems 


The Picture on the Wall 


13 


that my man has left California — is living in 
this state in a one-horse village on the river 
off main travel. He is still hoping his son^ll 
turn up some day, or at least that’s what the 
reporter says. His wife’s dead but his other 
child, a daughter, is living with him, and he 
still has that million or something like. He’s 
not much past fifty, but he’s lost his health 
complete, and looks like an old man.” 

^^That picture of him looks like he wouldn’t 
break early.” 

^Wes, but losing the kid done the trick. 
Cleek, if I’m any judge of life and art, this 
here picture looks enough like my nevvy to be 
him if he was older. See?” 

Cleek’s beetling scowl had gradually relaxed 
into a still more hideous grimace. It brought 
his features oddly up to the focus of his short 
square nose as if he were suddenly all pug. 
Shooting a stealthy glance out of the corner of 
his eye toward John Walters, he nodded. “I 
get you.” 

Blearstead gave his nose a mighty tweak 
and by the aid of his upper lip caused it to 
describe a complete circle. He whispered 
hoarsely: "Pve got an old grip with all the 
identification things in it needed to prove the 
case: the baby-clothes with the initials, the 
shoes, the baby-spoon what the maid snaked 
away with him, but best of all the old man’s 
letters to me all about my terms. Of course 
my name was different then, but them 
letters tell the whole story. He’s bound to 
recognize his own handwriting. I don’t need 
nothing but the kid hisself. See?” 

ain’t wall-eyed, am I?” retorted Cleek. 
^^Call John and have it out with him right 
now.” 

Blearstead cast a brooding look toward the 


14 


The Picture on the Wall 


erect, busy young man whose face showed no 
care, and whose whistling, soft but merry, in- 
dicated a joyous nature. Though his clothes 
were heavy and coarse there was an indefin- 
able difference between him and the two con- 
spirators which both felt and resented. That 
he should always keep himself scrupulously 
neat was a matter to them of no concern. He 
liked to be clean — ^well, that was all right. 
But the intangible someliing of the spirit that 
they could not name and realized that they 
lacked, brought the look of somber brooding 
to the uncle’s gaunt eyes. He muttered, 
^Wou’ve got to be kinder cautious the way you 
handle him. But we got to handle him, in 
course.” Then he called the young fellow from 
his tasks. ^^Here, John, we’ve got something 
up our sleeves. Listen at us.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE PLOT 

John Walters promptly responded to Blear- 
stead’s summons, traversing the long smoke- 
browned chamber, skillfully slipping between 
the little tables from which the long-used 
cloths had not been removed. As he drew 
near the corner gasjet, he noted the effect of 
its merdless glare on the two men projected 
sharply against the mellow obscurity ; the huge 
head of his uncle with its unkempt thatch of 
white hair, and the brick-red face of the pu- 
gilist had never appeared more sinister. But 
they were factors too intimate in his daily 
life to call for more than an appraising glance 
— a recent misadventure of his own was suffi- 
cient to engage all his faculties, now that work 
no longer claimed his hands. 

Over his delicately featured face passed an 
expression of swift resolution. He was a slen- 
der youth and not tall, of nervous organism, 
quick in all his ways, sharp and instantaneous 
in tones and forms of speech as if body and 
mind were kept wound up to highest tension. 
His uncle, a muscular giant nearly seven feet 
in height, could have overpowered him with- 
out question and he knew himself to be no 
match for the bully Cleek, yet he faced them 
with a countenance void of fear. 

‘‘Look here.” he began with his customary 
abruptness, “I’ve made up my mind never to 
go out with you fellows again — ” he met his 
uncle’s glare determinedly — “and I won’t 
have you telling me your schemes of robbing 

15 


16 


The Picture on the Wall 


houses and all that. I let myself in once for 
your kind of work and it’s going to last me a 
lifetime. See? My mother raised me to be 
always on the square and after this I intend 
to stay on the square. Yes, sir, if you throw 
me out on the street. I’m ready to go on my 
own, anyhow. You might as well — ” 

“Oh, come off,” Oleek interposed, tolerant- 
ly. “Shut off your works, boy, and take a re- 
cess with us. It’s a mighty safe bet that we 
don’t want you to go with us again on break- 
ing a house. Lord! what did you do, last 
night? You gets into a bedroom where a lady 
is taking her repose. She looks at you modest 
and reproachful, and, ^Excuse me, mum,’ says 
you, ffet me beg of you to make no noise, as 
you are perfectly safe,’ says you. Then you 
asks her to let you take away from the table 
a book of pomes as a souvenir, which you done. 
And as soon as you left that bedroom, the 
lady lets out a yell like a Camanche. Your 
uncle and me nearly broke our necks getting 
away. Maybe you call that square, nearly put- 
ting us both in the pen. Nothing ain’t any 
squarer to a man, than the mind he has. If 
you’ve got a square mind, you see things square, 
that’s all.” 

In describing John’s recent adventure as a 
house-breaker, Cleek kept close to the news- 
paper accounts as based on the statement of 
the lady in the bedroom which, in the main, 
was accurate enough. Dreadfully overwrought 
by her experience, the young lady had no doubt 
colored her story. At any rate John Walters 
had struck the reporters as a rich mine of ro- 
mantic possibilities. No one, of course, knew 
his name, but no name was desired. “The Po- 
lite Burglar” was better for a headline than 
any name. 


The Picture on the Wall 


17 


“We’re wasting time,” Blearstead growled. 

“One good thing, John,” Cleek persisted, 
“You got all the limelight. The whole city’s 
on the search for ‘The Polite Burglar’ with a 
volyume of pomes in his pocket.” 

“Of course,” Blearstead interposed, “we 
don’t need argue that my nevvy’s a fool. It 
goes without saying. But this kidnapping 
scheme sure ought to suit him down to the 
ground. And he owes it to me — since he’s so 
proud of talking about being ‘square’ — to make 
some return for all the money I’ve spent on 
him, yes, and on his ma before she died, though 
she was my own sister. Sister Ann never 
raised him right. She coddled his body and 
filled his brain with such thin-shelled ideas 
that they’re all-time breaking and getting 
messed up in his basket. She even give him 
the microbe of wanting to be educated. If 
she hadn’t died, I guess he’d be swimming over 
his head in books by now.” 

John Walters, waiting patiently for what 
was coming, listened with birdlike glancings 
of his eyes, unruffled and unafraid. 

“But his ma — the only sister I ever had — 
died, and about that time — Cleek, you remem- 
ber it — John falls off the roof and breaks his 
leg in two or three places. And what did I 
do?” 

“You sure took care of me,” John declared 
emphatically. 

His patron-uncle growled, “That’s what I 
done. And a long time before he could walk 
about, me feeding and clothing him, pouring 
out my money like water.” 

He addressed himself solely to Cleek, as if 
his nephew were a lay-figure. “Was that all? 
Not on your life. What does he do but break 
that leg over just when he was some account. 


18 


The Picture on the Wall 


me with the doctor^s bills. But iPs O. K. now. 
Yet can I point my finger to any special act 
of his and show it to you and say, ‘ThaPs his 
gratitude’ ?” 

John protested: ‘^I’ve worked steady in 
your restaurant.” He had always loathed the 
duties of Blearstead’s Eating House, and 
looked upon himself as a model of gratitude. 

‘Wes, and was paid to do it,” the other 
snapped. 

“I went with you on that house-breaking 
job.” 

“You had to go. We’d a-skinned you if 
you’d held back.” 

“No money could have paid me to go, nor 
threats either just by themselves. I was fool 
enough to think I owed it to you to do as you 
asked.” 

“And a mess you made of it!” 

Cleek interposed. “Everything he’s picked 
up in the way of schooling will come in awful 
handy in this new deal we’re passing him. 
Oh, boy!” 

Blearstead nodded and slapped the open 
newspaper. “Here’s the point: you’re to go 
to this man and pass yourself off as his son 
that was stole from his house when he lived 
in California twenty year ago. You’d have 
did this sooner but I never knowd what had 
become of the man till I see this newspaper. 
There was some time I lay under cover and 
when I begun to look about, the earth seemed 
to have swallowed up my man. I’ll give you 
more identification tags than half a dozen kid- 
napped babies would need in the parcel post. 
You’re to live with him and be his son; see? 
And as he’s a millionaire, you’ll be kind to me 
and Cleek. Doctors say he ain’t long for this 
world, and when he passes in his checks you 


The Picture on the Wall 19 

and his daughter will come into the grazing. 
There’s me and Cleek once more. It’s an easy 
job and suited to your ideas of taking things 
smooth. As the real son was drowned as a 
baby, nobody’s going to bob up to get in your 
way. You’ll be doing the old man a real kind- 
ness, and if the girl is single I reckon she’ll 
be glad to have. a good-looking brother to go 
about with ’er. Talk about being square. 
That’s the squarest thing on earth to get rich 
off of a bundle of old letters. All you need for 
success is a nerve and a smile.” 

^^If I was the right age,” Cleek sighed, “the 
next train would see me carrying the old grip 
with my baby-clothes. I mightn’t look as much 
like the millionaire did back yonder, but how 
does he know what his kid looks like by now? 
Here’s me hieing out to that little town on the 
river. This is me talking: ‘Daddy^ I’m your 
long-lost heir-apparent, come to share your last 
crust. Here’s my proofs in this suitcase.” 
Cleek flung open his arms as if to embrace a 
dream-figure. ^Daddy, don’t you remember 
that mole on my left bosom?’ — Say, Blear- 
stead, was the kid marked? That might make 
trouble.” 

“Nothing was said about no birthmarks,” 
impatiently. “Well, nevvy, there’s your deal, 
laid out on the table for you. Go and live in 
your palace. You’re a rich man’s son and your 
name is John Lyle Warring.” 

With no word escaping his grimly-set lips, 
the young man looked from one to the other 
with his piercing gray eyes. 

Cleek said, “As you’ve been ‘John’ all your 
life, all you have to get used to is to come 
when ‘Lyle Warring’ is called.” 

Though amazed at what he had heard, John 
was not surprised at his uncle’s audacity, for 


20 


The Picture on the Wall 


he and Cleek would hold back from no wild 
scheme. But the proposition was so different 
from the one he had dreaded, it sounded so 
impossibly romantic, that he did not know 
what answer to make. He had not the slight- 
est intention of yielding to the plot, but how 
to refuse and escape the violence of their wrath 
called for intense thought. For a time an un- 
easy silence prevailed while a black storm 
gathered on Blearstead’s brow and Cleek’s 
clenched fists brought out the great muscles 
on his bared arms. Then John braced himself 
for the unequal contest. 

But there came a diversion. Resounding 
blows made the front door jump in its sockets 
while stern demands were heard that it be 
opened in the name of the law. Instantly 
Blearstead’s face lost its look of ferocity in- 
spired by his nephew’s opposition. 

^^They’re after you, John,” he whispered, ris- 
ing to his towering height. ‘‘You do as Oleek 
says.” Then he raised his voice in a roar, “All 
right, I’m coming.” 

From the alley a voice responded: “No use 
to try any of your tricks, Blearstead, we’ve 
got the joint surrounded on all sides.” 

“All right, I’m coming,” he cried as before, 
his heavy tread jarring the dishes in the racks, 
as he traversed the length of the apartment. 

In the meantime, remarkably agile of move- 
ment, Cleek had stripped from half-a-dozen 
tables their dingy covers to cast them with ar- 
tistic carelessness into the darkest corner of 
the room. Under the heap which looked like 
drifted snow stained by the dust of windy 
days, John fiattened himself upon the floor as 
limp and motionless as if he were but another 
linen rag. 


CHAPTER III 

CONCEALMENT 

When Blearstead opened the door there was 
a pause, then a rush from the alley and three 
policemen with their officer burst into the room 
as if anticipating opposition. They stopped 
short at sight of the peaceful interior. While 
his men busily searched under tables and be- 
hind stacked-up chairs, the lieutenant observed 
genially, “Blearstead, I’m not after you and 
Cleek this time though there’s not a doubt 
you’re both back of the young scamp we’ve 
come to arrest. Where’s John Walters?” 

Blearstead spread his arms wide. “Search 
me, if you think I’ve got ’im in my pockets.” 

“We ain’t saw him,” OJeek observed, “since 
closing-up time. Then we told him to hide out 
as Blearstead and me had business to talk over. 
What’s the little devil been up to this time?” 

The officer knew the house-breakers too well 
to pay the slightest heed to their words, and 
the house-breakers spared themselves the effort 
of seeming indignant over the invasion. Two 
patrolmen darted into the next room on a tour 
of inspection — only one room opened into the 
dining-room, since the rear was used as a 
kitchen — while the other opened the back door 
to waiting comrades. Almost at once foot- 
steps were trampling about overhead ; the bed- 
rooms were being inspected. 

In the meantime the lieutenant seated com- 
fortably at a table with Blearstead and Cleek 
explained himself cheerfully: “I’m just keep- 
ing an eye on you fellows till they bring down 

21 


22 


The Picture on the Wall 


the boy. There were certain marks about that 
burglary on Troost Avenue last night that 
made us as morally certain it was your work 
as if you’d autographed it — but of course noth- 
ing moral can ever lay hold of you. No proofs ; 
that’s our weakness. But one of my men re- 
membered your waiter and that made me re- 
member too. The boy has always seemed 
straight, but of course he can’t go on living 
with you and keep straight. We fancy he is 
the Tolite Burglar.’ John is very polite, and 
politeness is awful rare among Americans 
these days, particularly American burglars. 
It seems a pretty warm trail, though I hate 
to think it of John; he had a good mother. 
If he’s innocent, nobody will be gladder. All 
we want is to show him to the lady he fright- 
ened half to death, and if she can’t identify 
him we’ll take up some other clue.” 

^^I wish I could help you, I do, indeed,” 
Oleek declared. 

^^All we want is to borrow John Walters for 
a little while. Now, look here, fellows, that’s 
not an unreasonable request. You know you’ve 
got off easy half a dozen times and I think you 
ought to show you appreciation. You’ve brok- 
en into a dozen houses that I’m morally cer- 
tain of, only, as I said, nothing moral can get 
you. By rights you ought to do time the rest 
of your lives. Yet here you are as free as air 
and all we ask is John.” 

^‘I ain’t saying but you’re a decent officer,” 
Cleek agreed, finding that Blearstead main- 
tained a sullen silence. course you get 

paid to be legal while me and Blearstead has 
to find our own board and clothes. You know 
we’d give up Johnny to you if we had him,” he 
grinned, ‘‘as innocent a babe as was ever 
weaned. But what you could do with him gets 


The Picture on the Wall 23 

my goat unless you’re thinking of starting a 
nursery.’’ 

^We won’t do a thing to disturb him, Cleek. 
We’ll feed him on a bottle and keep him ten- 
der till we can show him to Miss Alice Klade.” 

‘^Miss Who?” growled Blearstead whose 
sense of humor was rudimentary. 

The officer smiled. ‘^Haven’t you read about 
the Polite Burglar?” 

Oleek turned to Blearstead. “When John 
went away didn’t he say he wouldn’t blow in 
till morning?” 

“I never set up for him,” Blearstead af- 
firmed. “When he goes out after closing time, 
he knows he can’t get back into the house till 
I’m up in the morning.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” the officer 
murmured. ^ We’ll stay with you till he does 
blow in if it’s this time next week. We’ll take 
our hot meals with you, the best you’ve got, 
and you can charge ’em up to past favors. Of 
course it would make it easier for you and 
more comfortable all around if the boy’d give 
himself up at once. We’re bound to get him, 
and the longer he holds out the more guilty 
he’s proving himself. He lived in town 
years before you fellows came and we 
never had a mark against him. As a newsboy 
and messenger boy and driver of an express 
wagon he made more friends that you’ve made 
enemies. He and his mother were known all 
around here and he couldn’t any more hide 
from the law than an elephant could hide 
among the grassblades on a front lawn. He’s 
circulated everywhere. He’s big with noto- 
riety ; and before you took him in hand, he was 
all right; full of pranks, yes; but no meanness. 
And if he’s as nice a chap as when his mother 


24 


The Picture on the Wall 


died, he’ll not object to meet Miss Klade face 
to face.” 

don’t know,” Gleek observed. ^^He’s aw- 
ful bashful with ladies.” 

The officer shrugged his shoulders and a dull 
silence settled upon them to be broken pres- 
ently by the return of the police — the house 
had been searched in vain. 

Cleek then rose. ‘^Officer, if you’ve no ob- 
jection, I’ll go home to my pole to roost.” 

^^Certainly. Good-night, Cleek. You’ll not 
mind if I detail one of my men to see that you 
reach the coop in safety?” 

Cleek grinned. “It will be an honor.” When 
he was gone, Blearstead got up to go to bed, 
responding to the officer’s banter only by sur- 
ly glances. He strode into the adjoining room 
whence soon came the sound of wheels on the 
bare floor, explained when he reappeared, push- 
ing an immense laundry basket on a truck. 

No particular attention was paid him as he 
trundled the basket to the obscure corner where 
the soiled linen lay heaped. Bending low he 
gathered up John Walters’ slight and supple 
form in its white swathings and with no per- 
ceptible effort deposited him in the bottom of 
the basket coiled in a limp semicircle. The 
truck was then pushed back into the next room 
and filled to the brim with cloths and napkins 
so loosely arranged that they permitted the 
fugitive plenty of air. 

As this was John’s first adventure of the 
sort, he trembled with apprehension every time 
the heavy tread of a policeman drew near his 
place of concealment. Hearing his uncle as- 
cend to his room, he knew himself to be indeed 
alone with the enemy, and felt poignant regret 
that these men, formerly his friends, must now 
be classed as such. As he crouched in the bas- 


The Picture on the Wall 25 

ket, afraid to sleep lest heavy breathing lead 
to. his capture, he reviewed his life to discover 
the point at which it had changed for the 
worse. 

At school he had been thrown with people 
of stations sufficiently diverse to learn pretty 
accurately to measure his mother^s limitations. 
She had been a kind and ambitious woman, 
bent upon raising him to the heights she was 
unfitted to tread, and only their grim poverty 
and her failing health had checked his ad- 
vancement. When his uncle came evilly into 
their lives his mother’s strength had weakened 
swiftly to the end. She seemed to fear her 
giant brother who, however, showed them noth- 
ing but kindness. After her death, John 
thought it providential to have a relative of 
means ready to give him a home. Only grad- 
ually did the knowledge come that most of 
Blearstead’s income was independent of his 
restaurant. Perhaps he was not so shocked 
by the discovery as he should have been. Down 
in the slums, though one be ‘‘square,” he rubs 
elbows so constantly with crooked lives, that 
their nearness blunts his sensitiveness to right 
and wrong. 

John had at last been driven into a corner, 
but the expedition with Blearstead and Cleek 
to break into the Troost Avenue house had 
seemed to him an adventure unrelated to mo- 
rality. Had he held back at the cost of a beat- 
ing, the robbery would still have taken place, 
and in going he added nothing to the wrong- 
doing. All he had taken, and that after ask- 
ing permission, was a book of poems with Alice 
Klade’s name on the flyleaf. Yet the whole 
city — thus he thought of his Nemesis — was 
hunting him down ! It would be madness ever 


26 


The Picture on the Wall 


to show himself again on the streets — the name 
of John Walters must be cast aside forever. 

Toward morning the air grew cold, and John 
shivered under his coverings. The policemen 
in the next room were keeping up the fire but 
had closed the partition-door. He could move 
in the basket without fear of detection but with 
no other outlet than the dining-room and the 
stairway leading to the upper corridor, the 
small room offered no means of escape. He 
wondered how long he must remain in his 
cramped position and what bold scheme his 
uncle had formed. How could Blearstead and 
Oleek have communicated details of a plot 
looking toward his freedom while the lieuten- 
ant sat with them at table? Tones of their 
voices, stealthy looks, hidden twitches of the 
hands and feet must have carried on a curious 
conversation while the officer was intent on 
other matters. 

He knew when the early gray dawn began 
to show its cheerless presence at the skylight — 
this inner room had no windows. He heard 
his uncle’s feet treading heavily overhead, then 
coming down the stairs. He crossed the room 
as if knowing nothing of the basket, and jerked 
open the dining-room door. John heard him 
asking the watchmen if his nephew had turned 
up. Now he was opening the street-shutters, 
and pushing the tables creakingly here and 
there. His harsh voice was talking over the 
telephone. John knew he was talking to 
Cleek. What could he say to Cleek in the 
presence of the police? The partition-door 
was slammed shut and only subdued murmurs 
were to be heard from the end of the dining- 
room where the rusty coal-stove glowed in its 
litter of ashes. 

The cold increased; the light had not only 


The Picture on the Wall 


27 


the fixed glare but the touch of snow. From 
across the narrow alley came sullen sounds 
from the big tenement waking in its customary 
bad humor to go unwillingly about its sordid 
tasks. Already voices were quarreling, scream- 
ing, cursing. Vendors’ carts rattled past the 
rear of the restaurant. 

But the police made no move to depart. 
They would wait — ^wait all day. Had Blear- 
stead exhausted his inventive genius in getting 
John into the basket? Did he expect his 
nephew to steal upstairs and seek liberty down 
the back passage? But the back door would 
certainly be guarded. To remain or to attempt 
fiight seemed equally dangerous. 


OHAPTEE IV 

PLIGHT 

Presently a wagon rattled np before the 
front entrance and John wondered vaguely if 
the police had sent for an ambulance — and if 
it had come for him. It seemed more likely 
that Cleek had in this manner responded to 
Blearstead’s orders over the telephone, yet, if 
so, the policemen surely would have under- 
stood the scheme. 

The partition-door opened. Blearstead 
tramped into the room, and began pushing the 
truck before him, all the time keeping up a 
grumbling conversation with the policemen, 
lowering his raucous voice as he reached the 
door, subduing it still more as he made his 
way across the front end of the dining-room to 
the street-door. John felt the truck’s little 
rollers bumped over the sill to the pavement, 
then heard his uncle’s gruff command — 

^^Here, you ! Catch holt and give me a lift.” 

He felt himself swung up into the wagon 
which at once rattled away over cobblestones, 
jolting him so violently that at first he was 
hardly iaware of the keen fresh wind. Of 
course the driver was in the plot; any ordi- 
nary laundryman must have expressed aston- 
ishment at the basket’s weight. But evident- 
ly the young man was not expected to jump 
out and fiee, since the wagon maintained high 
speed. After various mad turnings the wagon 
was stopped so abruptly that he was fiung 
against the side of his wicker cage. 

‘^All O. K.,” sounded the voice of Oleek. 

28 


The Picture on the Wall 29 

The basket was lifted down and carried 
away, first over bare ground where boots 
gritted on ashes and cinders, then across a 
carpetless fioor. A door creaked open. Wood- 
en steps were descended and at the bottom 
Cleek bade the fugitive ‘‘Come out of there.’’ 

John emerged stiff and sore but with the 
alert self-possession with which he was wont 
to face his rather diflScult world. He stood in 
a cellar — a square dingy cave with unequal 
earthen fioor, walls of mangy disintegrating 
stones, a ceiling of blackened rafters meshy 
with the spider-webs of other years. Bits of 
boards and boxes overfiowing with rags and 
old papers were scattered about, with a pyra- 
mid of coal in a corner and a small grated 
window hidden by empty barrels perched upon 
the coal. Sufficient light peeped around the 
barricade and through loosened staves to cast 
the chamber into a brooding half-tone wherein 
all things were discerned but nothing clearly. 

Cleek said by way of explanation, “The 
Smiler” — and John who knew every nook of 
this section of the city understood that he was 
in one of the underground apartments of the 
Smiling Lane Tenement, just across the alley 
from his uncle’s restaurant. His long drive 
had been for the benefit of the police. The 
driver, as if his part had been thoroughly re- 
hearsed, fastened the laundry basket to his 
back and without a word stamped up the steps 
and vanished. 

“You’re safe here,” Cleek said with gruff 
friendliness, “but if you poke your nose 
through a crack you’ll get yourself nabbed. 
The gang’s sure hot on your trail and big 
headlines in this morning’s paper giving a 
mighty good description of you and your duds. 
As ‘The Polite Burglar’ you’re as famous as 


30 


The Picture on the Wall 


a movie star and since they’ve found out who 
‘The Polite Burglar/ is, you’ll never to able 
to show your mug in this town or claim your 
name anywhere else. You’re dead. The only 
show 1 see for you, old fellow, is to fall for 
your uncle’s scheme and be resurrected as the 
Warring heir. Go to that little river-town, 
about a hundred mile from here but so hid up 
in fields and woods that a fellow might stum- 
ble over it before he know it was there. Pass 
yourself off as John Lyle Warring and you’re 
safe for life with a million dollars to line your 
nest with.” 

John perched on a box of waste-paper and 
crossed his legs and pursed his mouth. “I’ve 
been thinking it over, Harve. Last night was 
long enough for a year’s thinking. But I don’t 
know. The idea of fooling the old gent and 
swiping the dough I’ve got no right to makes 
me sick.” 

“Well, I don’t think you can stay here with- 
out a doctor, either. There’s nothing in that 
talk.” Cleek moved toward the dusty stair- 
way. “The only one who had a right to the 
dough is drowned, not counting the girl, and 
of course she’ll get her share. The old man 
thinking he’s got back his long-lost son will 
make his last days his best days. But maybe 
you think you ain’t got the spirit to carry the 
thing off.” 

John laughed shortly. “Oh, I could do it 
all right; why, it’s a cinch.” 

“Well, you’ll either do it or get done; that’s 
another cinch. I didn’t get to talk to Bleary 
long enough to get all his details; he’ll have 
to come and put you wise to them. My advice 
is to have your mind made up to fall for his 
scheme when he does come. You know Bleary’s 
an Injun when you cross him. If you ain’t 


The Picture on the Wall 


31 


going to do as he says, better not wait here. 
You know yOn ain’t in prison, but free to come 
and go as you see fit.” With this, Cleek 
climbed aloft and banged the cellar-door be- 
hind him. 

John was given a long time to think this 
over but although he had already viewed the 
matter from every angle in his uncomfortable 
night-quarters, he was sorry when the sound 
of his uncle’s footsteps advised him that the 
period of reflection must end. It was mid- 
afternoon when Blearstead came down from 
the deserted room, a basket in one hand, in 
the other a large bundle. 

“I can’t stay but about five minutes,” the 
giant said, opening the basket on an impro- 
vised table as he spoke. The hungry tenant 
of the cellar was treated to a sight of hot 
savory dishes. ^‘Fall to,” Blearstead ordered 
not without a human sympathy in his gruff- 
ness. ‘‘I’ll say what I’ve got to say while 
you’re filling.” 

John eagerly availed himself of the oppor- 
tunity. His appetite was prodigious and while 
satisfying it he was saved from announcing 
the decision that would determine all his fu- 
ture. He had not yet definitely made up his 
mind, yet despite the sinister danger hanging 
over his head, and although moral scruples re- 
quire a purer air for full development than 
can be found in the “bad lands,” he could not 
see himself leagued with his uncle and Harve 
Cleek in the conspiracy. To impose upon the 
credulity of a helpless old man for dishonest 
gain struck him as abominable and the more 
time he had for reflection the more glaringly 
opposed to all his instincts it appeared. So 
he ate and said nothing. 

“I guess it’s fixed that you’re to go to Lag- 


32 


The Picture on the Wall 


ville, and that your name’s John Lyle War- 
ring — what? Lord! we’re getting mighty fine 
names now-a-days. I’ve already expressed a 
suitcase to Lagville adressed to you under an 
assoomed name — here it is on this slip of pa- 
per. Just tell ’em at the office that you’re 
this name and take the suitcase off to the 
woods somewheres and put on the clothes you’ll 
find in it. But it’s got more than duds. You’ll 
find your baby-clothes and your baby-spoon and 
all them letters Mr. Warring wrote me about 
you when you was kidnapped — see? Here’s 
the company’s receipt for the suitcase.” He 
handed over the yellow form. 

‘T know you wouldn’t betray your poor 
mother’s only brother, but if you do, you’re a 
dead man — them’s Cleek’s words, not mine. 
I’ve knowd Cleek three year and he is certain- 
ly a man of his word. In that suitcase wait- 
ing for you yonder at Lagville you’re going to 
find a change of clothes that the son of a rail- 
road president might be proud to wear, all in 
the latest colors from shoes to derby.” There 
was a convulsive writhing of his features and 
for a moment it appeared as if his nose might 
never get back in place. 

‘^But in this bundle you’ll find something to 
put on right now. I wouldn’t give three cents 
for your chances out of the pen if you leave 
this hole in your own duds. And when you 
take off your things, bury ’em careful under 
the coal so they won’t know you’ve got a new 
skin. When you get to Lagville, you’ll have to 
give old man Warring some account of your 
life and you want to give it full and free but 
not so full and free as ever to get balled up 
when you have to go over it a second time. 
See? So while you’re waiting for dark, better 
be getting your history on the brain. I don’t 


The Picture on the Wall 33 

care what you tell ’im, just so’s I’m left out. 
You’ve got some tall explaining to do. They’ll 
want to know how you come by the letters and 
things. And they’ll ask where the man that 
did the kidnapping and the housemaid — her 
name as knowd to them was Lizzie White — 
is.” 

John suggested, “Suppose that housemaid 
should show up after I’m established?” He 
found a definite enjoyment in picturing him- 
self in the house of luxury; of course it was 
a purely imaginary and impossible picture. 

“That ain’t likely. But you can attend to 
all that. You’re a scholar and can handle it 
out of books such as I couldn’t.” It had not 
occurred to Blearstead that the other meant 
to refuse and John thought grimly of the ter- 
rific struggle that must ensue should he drop 
hesitating words. 

While he ate steadily, his uncle continued: 
“This is the last you’ll see of me for quite a 
spell. When it’s dark and the coast is clear, 
Cleek will give you a sign. Then you’ll pull 
your freight. You can’t get out of town by 
any of the trains, everything’s being watched. 
Even the bridge is set for you. Famous man, 
you are! The Polite Burglar.’ Now listen: 
Tacky Hode will be waiting to take you down 
river in a skiff and after that, John Lyle War- 
ring is your name. Here’s money to take a 
train into Lagville and after that of course 
your daddy’ll furnish your pin-money. If 
they nab you before you get to the river, of 
course the Warring scheme is all off and you’ll 
be sent up like any other house-breaker. But 
if Tacky Hode once gets you safe in his boat, 
it’s my money on you as the son of a million- 
aire. Now I must be back to my joint. You 
won’t have to think of me and Cleek when 


34 


The Pictueb on the Wall 


you’re setting in your pa’s parlor and taking 
little sister out autoing. Put us out your 
mind — it’ll make your manners freer and 
easier. Forget we’re living. We’re used to 
ingratitood and ain’t asking no flowers. When 
the time’s ripe we’ll bring ourselves to your 
remembrance and help you bear your burdens.” 


CHAPTER V 

THE ESCAPE 

All that afternoon the wind blew from the 
south and by evening, even in the cellar under 
the old Smiling Lane Tenement, one could catch 
a breath of spring. It thrilled John, renew- 
ing his ambition to work up out of the reek 
and muck of the ‘d)ad lands.’^ He had kept 
himself singularly free from the contagion of 
evil. There was only the burglary on Troost 
Avenue against him and much as he regretted 
it from prudential considerations, knowing 
himself to be no thief it failed to oppress him 
with a sense of guilt. 

The scent of spring did more than strengthen 
the old resolve to break away from his uncle’s 
influence at whatever cost. It carried his mind 
to Bettie Hode the daughter of the man who 
was to row him across the river. His mother 
and hers had been intimate friends and he and 
Bettie had known and liked each other since 
he could first remember. There was no prettier 
girl, he thought; there was none more de- 
pendable; and now the intangible something 
in the wind that pushed through the barred 
window and made the empty barrels quiver 
brought the soul-stirring dream of love. Sure- 
ly he had loved her for a year without know- 
ing it. He would tell her so; and as there 
might not be an opportunity at the river-side, 
he would write her a letter. 

Searching among the old papers in one of 
the waste-boxes, a new idea occurred to him, 
suggested by finding a pencil-addressed en- 

S5 


36 


The Picture on the Wall 


velope postmarked York Mar. 4.” The 

year had not left its impression. This was 
the second day of March. He would put his 
note in this envelope and instruct Bettie, if 
occasion arose, to show it as proof that the 
fugitive had gone east. In the meantime, of 
course, he would go west — perhaps to Colorado 
Springs — anywhere but New York. Thus the 
note would not only throw the police off his 
trail, but put Bettie on the trail of his affec- 
tions. No answer was needed; he believed he 
knew her heart. Some day he would send for 
her — 

He erased from the envelope the address and 
substituted Bettie^s. Then he set himself to 
the composition of his letter, using the pencil 
always carried for the checking off of orders at 
the restaurant. He enjoyed the fleeting mo- 
ments, flnding zest in self-expression while the 
springtide gently stirred his locks, suggesting 
flowering flelds. 

The note flnished, he changed to the rough 
workman's garb provided by Blearstead, a 
dreamy look in his handsome dark eyes. From 
the city he would flee — ^yes, to Colorado 
Springs, since he had never been there. Un- 
der an assumed name, not "John Lyle War- 
ring,” certainly, he would start a new life, the 
life his mother had hoped for him. In Lag- 
ville there would no doubt be a great mystery 
over the unclaimed suitcase, while a revela- 
tion of its contents would revive wide discus- 
sion of the kidnapping. It would All the pa- 
pers. The millionaire would see the infant 
garments of his little one and the letters he 
had written hoping to recover him twenty 
years ago. It would be a great shock. Would 
it inspire him with hope or despair? Blear- 
stead would know his nephew had broken from 


The Picture on the Wall 


37 


his net, but what could he do, with that clue 
in Bettie’s hands to direct suspicions toward 
the Atlantic coast? ^‘Maybe I’m a big grape,” 
John muttered with a grin, ^^but sure thing thQ 
world’s big enough to swallow me!” 

It was almost midnight before Cleek’s cau- 
tious feet tiptoed to the head of the cellar 
stairs and his voice whispered the order to 
come up. In the darkness he grasped the 
young man’s arm to draw his ear close to his 
pursed lips: ^‘There’s a cop just outside. On 
every side outside; see? You’ve got to make 
it over the roofs. Don’t wait on me, your 
game’s solitaire. I’m going to see if you hid 
your other clothes good enough. This is Luck 
to you.” He crept down the stairs leaving the 
other standing in the bare room disagreeably 
surprised. So safe had he felt all day that the 
mention of the police had grated on his nerves. 

Had the cat been crouching all day at the 
mouth of the cage ? The windows were tacked 
over with soot-stained newspapers, but the 
moonlight hung there like ghost-lights hinting 
the way to the corridor. Noiselessly he glided 
up three pairs of narrow, greasy stairs and 
reached the trap that opened out upon the 
roof. Through the aperture he crawled to the 
flat deck where in the breathless heat of mid- 
summer, men, women and children were wont 
to stretch out, arms spread skyward, waiting 
for the little space of freshness that came just 
before dawn. 

From the deck the roof slanted sharply 
downward on all sides. Head-foremost he 
eased himself to a rotting cornice to peer over. 
The moon was old, bringing out walls and fire- 
escapes, roofs and chimneys with that relent- 
less particularity so distasteful to youth. 
Even the shadows were robbed of glamour; in 


38 


The Picture on the Wall 


the alley between the tenement and Blear- 
stead’s Eating House every irregular-shaped 
shadow was legible and in two of them John 
could read a policeman. 

Creeping around to the opposite side he 
found the eaves projecting over the roof of the 
next building. It would be a far drop and the 
thud of his landing upon the slate might well 
evoke dangerous echoes, but the chance must 
be taken. Grasping the open-faced gutter till 
his body had stiffened to its length in air, he 
let go, then crouched behind a chimney at sound 
of a piercing whistle from the street. He felt 
himself upheld, a dark figure in a world of 
glaring light while behind every ridge and 
angle eyes seemed watching. Feet ran over 
the cobblestones. Violently a door slammed. 

Quick as had been the impulse to double up 
behind the chimney came the thought that to 
linger there was madness. He ran. The roof 
was steep and he forgot — he was always for- 
getting — that his feet were not so sure as before 
the double breaking of his leg. He slipped. He 
went rolling to the eaves barely catching him- 
self from being dashed to destruction. The 
sweat was streaming from his face as he pull- 
ed himself along a transverse iron rod back to 
the ridge-pole. Over the ridge he drew him- 
self, then slid down against the rush of warm 
wind that carried away his hat. 

On this side the roof brought up squarely 
against the wall of a higher tenement, a wide- 
mouthed gutter marking the juncture. A few 
feet above the water-course, a shuttered dor- 
mer window jutted toward him. The shutter 
gave way in his frantic grasp, opening out- 
ward with a shrill creak. He swung himself 
into a foul-aired room, the wind rushing after 
him. A few dark figures from among those 


The Picture on the Wall 


39 


packed close on vile mattresses raised on un- 
steady elbows, and curses mingled with snores. 
The moon glared through the opening search- 
ing out with pitiless curiosity the rags and 
litter, drawing the eye now to a bloated hairy 
face, now to a mere glimpse of purplish lips 
and a nose in a frame of disordered tresses. 
A young man lay groaning in drunken slum- 
ber while the muddy boot of another sleeper 
sprawled across his neck. John stooped to re- 
move the heavy foot then picked his way to 
the corridor, and though his clothes were mean 
and he wore a hunted air he looked no closer 
akin to the sleepers than if they had been the 
mud in the course of his crossing. 

The corridor led him to the steps and he took 
two at a time sensible of teeming life in every 
room he passed; but on the way he met only 
a drunken man dizzily swaying on the landing 
of the second flight, and in the street-hallway 
a sobbing child with a bucket of water too 
heavy for it to carry. 

^^I’ll take that for you, little man,” he said 
cheerily, and the lad darted up, leading 
the way, his sobs subsiding, with no’ 
other token of gratitude. Coming back, he 
found the drunkard still trying to ascend. 
“Hard luck old top,” John said, taking his 
flabby arm. “Let me help you on the way.” 

After all, not much time was lost and he 
had a warm feeling that something had been 
gained by the delay. Soon he was running 
along the street, the balmy wind thrilling in 
his bared hair. As he rounded the first cor- 
ner a shout arose but he was not sure if it were 
meant for him. Later, after diving through a 
maze of criss-crossed alleyways, he came out 
under the steady radiance of an arc-light on a 
cross-street in which he was the only sign of 


40 


The Picture on the Wall 


life, and when this was traversed he felt that 
his old life with all its dangers and sordidness 
was left behind. An exquisite sense of peace 
pervaded his senses and he took great breaths 
as if an intolerable weariness had been shaken 
off leaving him rested for any hard enterprise. 

Pursuing his way light-heartedly he met no 
policeman, heard no alarm. The lonely lights 
of deserted streets swung higher and higher 
as he approached the river till they seemed 
set in the sky among the stars. A high bluff 
around which extensive levelling was in prog- 
ress afforded the risky means of a short cut, 
and he slid and scrambled down the furrowed 
red surface carrying dust and stones with him. 
He had reached the “Bottoms.’’ Behind him 
the red and gray faces of gnarled cliffs jutted 
out from the mainland in huge fantastic 
shapes like hideous caricatures of human faces 
buried chin downward. They blotted out all 
of the city except those lights in the sky and, 
here and there, narrow unpaved roads cut by 
the grinding of heavily-loaded wagons. 

He was walking across a wide plain which 
stretched level as a sanded floor from the bluffs 
to the dark river. An occasional intrepid cot- 
tonwood tree with ancient river-drift in its 
branches looked like a bent old man with tow- 
sled locks. Though they were out of his course 
and stood far apart he hunted the protection 
of these trees, for the nakedness of the river- 
beach brought back the impression that he was 
being watched. An infolding of the higher 
ground held curiously fashioned houseboats, 
some stranded near the base of the cliffs where 
the last flood had carried them, others at the 
water’s edge. Of these, only one was awake. 
From it shone a slender steady beam. It was 
the houseboat where Bettie lived ; thither 


The Picture on the Wall 


41 


Blearstead had directed him for the means of 
crossing the river, but the light was a warn- 
ing to keep away. He stopped in dismayed 
surprise. The signal could mean only that the 
police had possession of the boat, and were 
awaiting his coming. 


CHAPTER VI 

BETTIE TO THE RESCUE 

Tacky Hode’s houseboat consisted of an old 
wooden streetcar set far back on a narrow 
deck which stood only a few feet above the wa- 
ter. Tacky among other things was a fisher- 
man and as the Blearstead Eating House was 
supplied with fish through him, John saw him 
constantly, liking him less the oftener he saw 
him. But because he was a ruffian, capable of 
any crime to the taste of Blearstead and Cleek, 
his intimates, John held him as a match for 
any policeman. The houseboat might be 
swarming with officers of the law, but the sig- 
nal light burning under their very noses was 
Hode’s answer to the voice of authority. Nor 
did John suspect for a moment that his uncle 
or Cleek or Hode would play him false. If not 
honor, then self-interest was the cohesive force 
that bound the thieves together. 

From the protection of a cottonwood tree his 
keen eyes caught the movement of a slight fig- 
ure on the sand-waste. It was drawing nearer. 
Looking swiftly about for better shelter, he 
found only an upturned skiff, one side painted 
silver in the moonlight, and threw himself 
down beside it, seeking absorption in its mi- 
serly scarf of shade. The figure advanced 
rapidly, and suddenly it seemed to him that the 
delicious warm wind was running toward him 
on the bare feet of a girl. He scrambled up 
to greet Hode’s daughter. 

“You’ve got to hurry,” she panted, lifting 

42 


The Picture on the Wall 


43 


both arms to brush back her hair. ‘‘Come 
ahead 

As he kept pace with her flying feet she ex- 
plained that her father had received word from 
Blearstead of his coming, but somehow the 
police had either heard it also, or had suspect- 
ed it, knowing of their friendship. Half an 
hour ago two officers had descended upon the 
houseboat. They were there now, waiting for 
the fugitive to fling himself into their toils. 
Hode was practically a prisoner. The skiff, 
of course, was there, safely padlocked, with 
the key in a blue pocket. 

The news had a peculiar effect upon the 
young man. It was like opening the door of 
a warm room to admit a piercing blast. It 
was not that the presence of policemen in the 
houseboat terrified him; he was not terrified; 
his face did not lose color. But there came 
over him a sickening sense of helplessness, a 
feeling that wherever he might flee the Law 
would be in wait to drag him to prison. They 
had known of the scheme to be rowed across 
the river by the fisherman, or had guessed it. 
They would find him in Colorado Springs. 
What was the use? 

“But we are up to their tricks,’’ Bettie grin- 
ned, brushing back her hair which the wind 
continually whipped about her dark face. She 
had always stirred him by her independent air, 
her resourcefulness, and tonight her confidence 
deepened his admiration. And how pretty! 
After a rigorous winter which had persisted 
until the morning of this very day, the air was 
rushing in the hightide of spring — and it seem- 
ed all Bettie’s doing, as if there couldn’t have 
been a real spring if there hadn’t been Bettie. 

“Where are we going?” he wanted to know. 

“I’ll get you across — don’t you fret!” 


44 


The Picture on the Wall 


hate to leave you, Bettie/^ He added 
in surprise, never knew what it^s going to 
be like, leaving you ! WeVe been such friends 
since we were kids wading in the river, your 
mother and mine so chummy and all. But I 
don’t know how to say it — it’s sort of written 
here: stick this letter in your dress and read 
it some time.” 

She took it with a sidelong look, but said 
nothing, only brushed at her hair. 

Now they were under the bridge. It swung 
up there in the sky with its twinkling lights 
like a crown of black velvet incrusted with 
stars. The immense piers, milk-white in the 
moonlight, dwarfed them, and the skiff, tied to 
a hook in the breakwater, seemed a child’s tiny 
paper boat. 

^^Climb in,” Bettie said imperiously. ‘‘Pm 
barefooted on purpose for this job.” Her dress 
was scant and short, her limbs sturdy as be- 
fitted those of a river-girl accustomed to aid 
with the nets and lines. As she pushed off 
there was instinctive grace in the flexible 
movements of her gleaming arms, bared to the 
shoulders. They were bronzed and generously 
modeled, the satiny skin slipping easily over 
the muscles. Beneath her throat where the 
blouse gaped low, the moonlight found a match 
for its snowy softness and lingered there lov- 
ingly. 

“So you’re not coming back,” she said with 
mournful cadence, then caught up the oars 
with sudden energy while the moon glancing 
over her feet turned the water that trickled 
down her limbs to showers of pearls. “But if 
you did I guess you’d go again. It’s been that 
way all my life. As soon as I make friends, 
the river rises and carries us away to another 
place. We can’t take hold of anything. But 


The Picture on the Wall 


45 


every time we came back here we found you 
waiting till you got to seem to me something 
like the bridge and the shore — always there, 
whatever floods come. Funny how I feel about 
you, John.^^ She gave a short rueful laugh. 

“The way I feel about you is all in that let- 
ter,” he said, feeling his throat tighten from 
the unconscious pathos in her words. “I know 
how you hate to read, but you won^t mind read- 
ing that. IPs all written down.” 

“All right. I’ll study it out. Pa and ma are 
just like driftwood that gets itself lodged for 
awhile in the bend of the river then gets wash- 
ed away to nowhere, and me with ’em. You 
can just think of me a-floating down, just a- 
floating down to nowhere.” 

“I’ll not think of you in any such way. You 
and I are going to get lodged together some 
day for keeps. It’s all in that letter. I’m not 
saying anything under the circumstances, but 
it’s written down. 

‘Where you going to ? Maybe some time we’ll 
float there and tie up.” 

Then he told her Blearstead’s scheme of hav- 
ing him impersonate the boy kidnapped as an 
infant from the home of the millionaire. How 
his uncle would have raged to hear the secret 
bared in all its details! But John and Bettie 
had always told each other everything in per- 
fect trust — she knew even about the burglary 
on Troost Avenue. As he talked she rowed 
steadily while both kept keen watch up and 
down the stream. He felt that no moments 
were so sweet as those spent in baring his 
heart to Bettie; it had always been so — and 
what could that mean except that which he had 
written in the letter? 

“Of course,” he concluded, “if I decide to 
fall for the plot. I’ll never come back. Be- 


46 


The Picture on the Wall 


cause I’ll never be myself again. John Wal- 
ters will simply vanish from the earth. But 
that other character, John Lyle Warring, he’ll 
come and find you and carry you away with 
him.” 

She asked breathlessly, ^‘And are you going 
to do it?” 

He laughed perplexedly. ‘'If you’d asked me 
that half an hour ago I’d have said, ‘Not on 
your life; I’m bound for Colorado Springs.’ 
But I don’t know how it is — I don’t think it’s 
from losing my nerve or getting stagefright — 
somehow finding that the cops had chased me 
to your father’s houseboat, yes, worse than 
that, had got there ahead of me — ^looks like 
there’s no spot on earth safe for Johnny Wal- 
ters. And I want to be safe to lead some kind 
of decent life, don’t you know.” 

“Poor John!” Tears showed in her eyes, 
tears just for him ; they were beautiful. 

“Yes — ^just like that. It seems horridly 
mean to impose on the old man as his long- 
lost son. But, look here. Bet; suppose he 
never caught on to the trick, never learned any 
different; see? One thing certain, if I do fall 
for the drama, I’m going to be just as good a 
son to the governor as I know how to act the 
part. And I guess,” he added with sudden 
softness, “I had pretty good practice with my 
dear old mammy.” 

As they swept along with the current she 
gave him a long, tender look. He had always 
been different from anybody else in her world ; 
like a glimpse of a foreign country she found 
him, and his present prospects— of course he 
would escape to Lagville — seemed immense, 
gorgeous beyond dreams. Delicate shades of 
morality caused her no uneasiness; to the 
more obvious virtues she clung instinctively, 


The Picture on the Wall 


47 


but in the present case morality seemed not 
iuvolved. It was simply a matter of drop- 
ping one^s old self like an outworn garment, 
and assuming a new self, finer, richer, above 
all, safe. 

‘^My land!’’ sighed Bettie, thrusting in the 
oars deep to swing the skiff to the opposite 
shore and bracing her feet for the struggle, 
“if I knew some way or other to stop being 
myself I” 

“I wouldn’t have you anybody else for a 
million dollars,” cried her companion, “and I 
ain’t fiush, either.” 

“Yes, but what I want is to stop being Bettie 
Hode. Beckon you don’t know of any kidnap- 
ped girl that there’s a lamp in the window 
waiting for, do you?” 

“I don’t know any girl anywhere that’s half 
as pretty and good and game as you are, Bettie, 
with your dear old laugh and your — ^but it’s 
all written down. You can read about it. 
As for me, I haven’t made up my mind, but 
I’m afraid I’m going to be driven to the rich 
man’s door. And I hate it. It worries me 
blind. Because I haven’t had enough of being 
myself. I never did get tired of just being 
John Walters.” 


CHAPTER VII 

AT THE DOOR 

Two days later, John rang the Warring door- 
bell and waited — he was kept waiting a long 
time — on the threshold of his adventure. A 
dozen times since his parting from Bettie had 
come the resolve to give over the enterprise; 
but the papers had been so full of him, even 
to his picture, which happily lacked resem- 
blance, that when he came to write his name 
in the register of an inland hotel, John Wal- 
ters was cast aside and ^‘John Lyle Warring’’ 
took his place in the world. For good or ill 
he was now John Lyle Warring, and in spite 
of scruples and hazards he was resolved to 
act the part well. 

Standing on the broad stone-pillared porch 
he justified himself that he might play the part 
with freer mind. Only long enough to throw 
the police effectively off the scent would he 
wear the mantle of wealth and station as 
shield against the storm — as soon as it was 
safe he would disappear taking nothing with 
him but his freedom. Should he be accepted 
as the son indeed, doubtless the later disillu- 
sion would leave sore hearts, but after all no 
terrible misfortune would ensue, such, for in- 
stance, as a term in the penitentiary. That 
prospect of state’s prison turned his face 
squarely to the great adventure. 

“I’ve got a pretty good home,” he reflected 
with a grin, appraising the massive house with 
its turrets, its spacious windows, its generous 
balconies, and its surroundings of well-kept 

48 


The Picture on the Wall 


49 


lawns and deep garden. For a sleepy little 
river-town, the place was imposing, the house 
a mansion. There was nothing like it in sight 
though it stood midway up the street of Lag- 
ville’s most pretentious residences. 

It was four in the afternoon. About two 
hours earlier he had stepped empty-handed 
from the train. There had been no difficulty 
at the express office in obtaining possession of 
the suitcase and three-quarters of a mile up- 
stream a deserted cattle-shed had afforded a 
retired dressing-room. Quickly he had been 
transformed from the slouching laborer to a 
flashily-dressed young man of leisure, for the 
suit supplied by Blearstead and embodying his 
ideals of a real gentleman, suggested a confl- 
dence man, or at best a connoisseur of the race- 
tracks. 

John’s serene self-possession bore a strong 
family resemblance to impudence though in 
reality not closely akin, and went well with 
the gaily striped breeches and flaming tie. 
After flnal touches had been deftly given by 
means of pocket-comb and tiny mirror in the 
side of its case — accessories of adornment he 
was never without — he had done up the baby- 
clothes and old letters in a small parcel, then 
sunk the suitcase with its laborer’s clothes. 
On his return to Lagville the very express 
agent had failed to recognize the man in over- 
alls who had come to town presumably hunt- 
ing a job. 

When at last the door opened, he felt that 
his “job” was to be deflnitely given him. 

“Well?” inquired a cool, drawling voice and 
he was confronted by a young woman of about 
his age whom at first sight he found, more 
than anything else, pronouncedly ugly. 

He thought ruefully, “Little sister!” Gh,l- 


i 


50 The Picture on the Wall 

lantly he raised his white-and-green hat, smiled 
the smile that made friends even of ticket- 
agents, and inclined from the waist. ‘‘Could 
I see Mr. Warring on a matter of business?^’ 

“No,’’ came the response without an instant’s 
indecision. “Mr. Warring is not able to at- 
tend to any business and Mr. Glaxton is away 
to be gone a month.” 

Finding she was about to close the door he 
spoke rapidly: “I’m sorry not to get to see 
Mr. Glaxton, too — ” wondering who Mr. Glax- 
ton was — “ljut I couldn’t stay a month for 
that pleasure. Really my business is very im- 
portant and pressing; you can’t think how 
pressing it is! I must see Mr. Warring with- 
out delay, for his sake as well as for my own.” 

She shrugged at the waste of time. “The 
more important your business is, the less like^ 
ly are you to see Mr. Warring.” Again the 
door was about to close in his face. But his 
geniality had not been without effect upon her 
cool, inelastic nature, for she paused to mur- 
mur vaguely, “When Mr. Glaxton comes — ” 

He was swift to take advantage of her hesi- 
tation. “But you’ll surely take up a line for 
me to Mr. Warring?” From his pocket he 
fished pencil and paper looking for all the 
world as if about to record a gambling-bet. 
Yet despite his sporting clothes and confident 
bearing, there was something about his ex- 
pression that pleased her; it was his manner 
of suggesting that he had not observed that 
she was ugly. 

Her nose was too long not to catch any eye 
turned her way, while her mouth, unfortunate- 
ly small, a mere round hole, left a wide ex- 
panse of sallow cheek-spaces. She was stooped 
over, yet even so, towered, being so much taller 
than other women. But John manifested 


The Picture on the Wall 


51 


nothing but alert interest, ready for instan- 
taneous friendship. 

^^ril take it upstairs, though it won’t be 
any use,” she observed, showing a little more 
of the whites of her eyes. “If they think best 
they can hand it to him, which they won’t, 
I’m afraid.” 

“Things seem badly balled up,” he observed 
cheerfully, “with Mr. Glaxton away for a 
month and the rest of ’em sitting as commit- 
tee on the old gentleman’s actions.” 

She looked at him with something like an 
awakening of life in her eyes, and her voice 
came with less listlessness. “Maybe things 
are mixed up, some.” 

“Seems so to a stranger. Well, this mes- 
sage will put a little yeast in the mixture and 
start something to working.” And he wrote, 

^‘Information concerning John Lyle War- 
ring/^ 

He could not resist handing her the mes- 
sage in such fashion as to force the words upon 
her notice but she showed neither surprise nor 
animation. “Well, I’ll take it up to them.” 
And she bore the slip of paper away leaving 
him shut out on the porch. 

“No, that can’t be little sister,” he re- 
flected. “Strange house! But maybe this is 
the way millionaires do it!” 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE CLAIMANT 

Waiting on the porch, John spread his legs 
rather far apart to examine as much of him- 
self as possible in his pocket-mirror to find 
if his hair was well arranged and his trousers 
still perfectly creased. But the sound of light 
footsteps caused him to perform a miracle of 
readjustments. The door was opened with a 
jerk and a girl of nineteen or twenty bade him 
come in, her voice breathless, her cheeks burn- 
ing as if she had just broken away from a scene 
of warm dispute. 

He had the impression, which did not strike 
him as contradictory, that the dark hall was 
fiooded with light by her presence and that in 
going with her he was not leaving earth^s 
brightness but was following the day. He 
might have found her less bewilderingly ap- 
pealing had he not been expecting the return 
of the long nose, the diminutive mouth, the 
sallow cheeks. On account of the previous 
vision it was natural to take keener delight in 
the slight and graceful figure, the fresh com- 
plexion of the oval cheeks, the glowing golden 
hair reminding him of fairy tales, the hands 
exquisitely shaped. Wherever she moved, light 
fiashed, leaving an incredible emptiness where 
she had been, a coldness, a desolation. Here 
indeed was a sister worth having and, to his 
way of thinking, worth terrible plunges into 
the depths of fictitious narrative. What a 
shield to wear as a defence against the ven- 
geance of the law! How perfect her mouth, 

52 


The Picture on the Waul 


53 


hoTV rounded her cheeks, what adorable ears! 

Not one word did she utter while leading 
him across the hall to what in Lagville was 
always known as the ^^front parlor;’’ but he 
could see that she was tremendously moved. 
It was shown in her rapid step, her flashing 
eyes, the eagerness of her hand upon the door, 
her manner of waving him into the room. But, 
alas ! when they were within she joined herself 
to two persons in waiting as if to show em- 
phatically that he must stand or fall alone. 
Yet in spite of this definite withdrawal he felt 
that she was leaning toward him, and he be- 
lieved that one of her friends, she who had first 
opened to him the door, was destined also to 
prove his ally. 

“Be seated,” said the oldest of the waiting 
group, a lady of middle life, correct in tone, 
poise and dress, really a formidable creature 
who knew the standards of society’s more shel- 
tered classes, and conformed to them scrupu- 
lously as to a religion. John was really afraid 
of her nose-glasses dangling on their elegant 
gold chain, of her rustling skirts, of her se- 
vere gray eyes. 

As all sat down, those three in a row across 
the room, he decided with a pang that the beau- 
tiful blond could not, after all, be his “sister.” 
Surely the overpowering lady with the hand- 
some face and austere countenance must be 
her mother, whereas the millionaire’s wife was 
dead. Emerging from a cloud of disappoint- 
ment, he realized that they were regarding him 
with intent eyes which constantly rose from 
his face to a spot in the wall above his head, 
only to return more fixed than ever. It was 
like a pantomime; there was perfect concert 
in their movements as if they had been re- 
hearsing their mystery play. 


54 


The Picture on the Wall 


He shattered the sinister silence by exclaim- 
ing, with a smile, ^‘Let me have a look, too!’’ 
then turned his neck to stare upward. 

They were instinctively comparing him with 
a portrait done years ago when Mr. Warring 
was a young man — for the portrait was that 
of the millionaire. John slowly rose, staring, 
chilled by the conviction that all resemblance 
was lacking. If he knew himself, he did not 
look like that. He did not feel like that. 
Would they not presently cry out ^‘Fraud”? 

The oil painting was that of a dark, aristo- 
cratic-looking young man with clustering hair, 
high forehead, sensitive mouth. The chin was 
very handsome, the nose straight and fine. 
The whole expression was that of dignity, sin- 
cerity, self-respect without arrogance. One 
felt that such a man could do nothing mean, 
that his thoughts would not be trivial, that 
his words would be measured, his opinions of 
weight. He was a thorough gentleman and 
could not have been otherwise. It is good to 
be thought well of by such a man ; his approval 
conveys distinction. 

John stared in dismay, fancying himself as 
far removed from such a personage as he 
felt Blearstead to be removed from his sym- 
pathies. Surely they must see that for him to 
claim relationship with the head of the family 
was preposterous. The silence deepened. The 
lady’s skirts no longer rustled, her slender 
chain ceased to dangle. 

But he must try for it. There was nothing 
else to do. After all, it could not be said that 
any feature in the painting offered absolute 
contradiction. He turned to the group with 
an air as cool as if he were the portrait-paint- 
er, betraying by no quiver of tone the pound- 


The Picture on the Wall 55 

ing of his heart. “If it were hung in a better 
light — ’’ he murmured. 

Touched by the sound of his voice to emo- 
tion seemingly of amazement alone, the lovely 
blond started up with a breathless cry. He 
was struck by the wholly unconscious rhythm 
of her movements. What a different girl from 
those of his world ! He tried to imagine 
Bettie, for instance, sharing the atmosphere 
of this home, but fancy limped under the bur- 
den. This made him realize how alien he must 
appear to the scene but he lost self-conscious- 
ness in wondering what the girl was about to 
do. Standing with eyes glued to his face she 
uttered no word yet seemed about to cry out, 
her arms visibly trembling as she pressed 
them against her body. 

“Wait, Lucia!’’ 

Under the compelling voice of the lady with 
the nose-glasses she fell back in her chair, cov- 
ering her face with her hands. The ugly girl, 
shoulders bent as if to diminish the extraor- 
dinary height of her thin frame, kept her 
round, fascinated eyes upon the stranger, yet 
through her homeliness and open curiosity 
shone an indefinable something akin to Lucia’s 
charm. All these people were kin to the pic- 
ture on the wall, if not in blood, then in spirit. 
But he ! — Surely they would cry out against 
him. 

“I must warn you,” the lady spoke with cold 
repression, “that we have in times past and 
gone been imposed upon by men pretending to 
know that Mr. Warring’s son is living. A few 
years ago an unspeakable character had the 
baseness to claim that he was the missing heir.” 
She gave a slight but quite obvious twitch to 
her skirts as if to remove them by that much 
from the proximity with the stranger. “There 


66 


The Picture on the Wall 


was, I must admit, a certain resemblance, but 
Mr. Glaxton exposed the imposter. It was 
at that time that Mr. Glaxton came to live in 
the house.” 

“I can well believe,” John gravely responded, 
“that you must have been persecuted by false 
claimants showing up from mercenary mo- 
tives.” 

As if he had not spoken, she continued, her 
voice at the freezing-point; “Mr. Warring is 
seriously ill; his heart is affected. Doubtless 
he could endure the shock of happiness on 
learning that his son is living. But should he 
take to heart some one who later proved an im- 
poster, it would kill him. The evil one who 
should play upon his credulity would be not 
alone an imposter, but a murderer.” Then 
abruptly, “Had we not better end this inter- 
view at once?” And she lifted the glasses to 
her nose. 

He rose. What she had said weighed more 
with him than her manner, although the effect 
of the nose-glass movement was to transport 
him to the uttermost horizon of her percep- 
tion. Even for the sake of his personal lib- 
erty, could he voluntarily take chances of for- 
ever stilling the father’s overburdened heart? 

“I think,” he said still outwardly calm, “that 
possibly I had better retire.” 

Lucia who, according to his judgment, re- 
sembled the austere lady more nearly than he 
resembled the portrait, again sprang to her 
feet, her hands leaving her face. “No! You 
shall not retire!” Her tones were vibrant, her 
eyes flashed, her cheeks glowed, her little white 
fists were clenched. With her burning hair 
and roseleaf complexion she made a living pic- 
ture in deeply-laid colors that filled his eyes 
to their remotest depths. “No!” 


The Picture on the Wall 


67 


^‘Lucia r’ the lady warned. ^^The best fami- 
lies, Lucia.^’ 

This phrase was a reminder of the duty she 
owed her station in life, the duty to appear re- 
served, untouched by circumstance — something 
Lucia with her impulsive nature was often for- 
getting. She darted to the wall to press a 
call-button, at the same time looking back over 
her shoulder at the lady who remained a hand- 
some statue of petrified propriety. ^‘You must 
let me manage this. Aunt Hildegarde.” 

John, who had made a movement to retire, 
stopped short. Then she was not, after all, the 
daughter of the austere lady. She must be Mr. 
Warring’s daughter. If he could risk the shock 
to the invalid’s heart, thereby saving himself 
from the officers of the law by remaining in 
the house for a few weeks, this young girl 
would be his “sister.” He was overwhelmed by 
the desire to remain near her thus miraculously 
circumstanced. 

She wheeled upon him not with hostility but 
with scintillating eye-thrusts that sought to 
pierce his armor. “Who are you?” she de- 
manded. 

He was drawn toward her so strongly that 
he felt it necessary to brace himself by placing 
between them a barrier. “It doesn’t matter — 
I’ll go.” 

Her face lost much of its color, her soft lips 
hardened. “You have made a claim, indirect- 
ly, it is true; but you shall justify it, or — ” 
She pointed toward the open door. 

In the hall just beyond the threshold, in 
answer to the push-button, stood a man of ex- 
treme height, slender but powerful, who could 
have held his own with even Blearstead or 
Cleek. Clean-shaven with blue jowl, no ex- 
pression but that of eagle watchfulness dom- 


58 


The Picture on the Wall 


inated the large features. He gave a singular 
impression of clamminess as if his hands were 
always damp, though his black suit was speck- 
less, his linen scrupulously fresh. 

John, regarding him appraisingly, felt frailer 
than he really was. It seemed his ill-fortune 
always to be opposed by larger and stronger 
men; still there was compensation in the fact 
that his courage always swelled to meet the 
issue. He could make no pretense to the joy 
of a son of the house coming to his own, be- 
cause he could not play the hypocrite; but he 
could regard the man-servant with a look of 
cool contempt. 

am determined,” the girl cried, ‘^that my 
father’s health shall not be undermined by 
these — these interviews. If all is not right, I 
shall make an example of you as a warning to 
others.” She looked toward the hall-door and 
the man gave a furtive and sinister nod. “No 
one shall ever come again as you have come.” 
Her voice was hard, her eyes flashed Are. 

And then suddenly the mist showed in the 
tender blue, and impassioned longing strug- 
gled into her voice. “But if you can prove 
yourself — oh, prove yourself!” 

His eyes feir before her yearning look, and 
with the music of her desire ringing in his 
ears, he could find no word. But the issue 
must be met now and forever. He snatched 
the package of baby-clothes from his pocket 
and tore it open to display the time-stained let- 
ters. 

Her brave defiance was gone. With shak- 
ing hands she opened one of the letters to find 
words dancing at her in her father’s unmistak- 
able writing. Here were phrases he had often 
repeated to her from memory, acceptance of 
the abductor’s terms, description of the pro- 


The Picture on the Wall 


59 


posed hiding-place for the ransom-money. The 
page blinded her eyes as if it burned as the 
sun. To clear them, she swept John with a 
wavering glance, then turned for a last time to 
the picture on the wall. It seemed to whis- 
per to her, telling her that all was well. Sud- 
denly she dropped everything to throw her 
arms about his neck. 

‘‘My brother she sobbed, holding him close. 


CHAPTER IX 

ACCEPTED AS THE HEIR 

During the first breathless moments follow- 
ing his definite claim to the heirship, John^s 
senses were blurred. A dream-sister clung to 
him, while to himself he became also a figure 
in a sweet, impossible dream. In this misty 
unreality it was Aunt Hildegarde who ac- 
quired the sharp outlines of the world of fact. 
Her hand clasped his with the cool pressure of 
one whose emotions conform to the strictest 
standards of politeness. 

‘‘I need not say that it rejoices us to accept 
you as John Lyle Warring.’’ Her air was that 
of one who seldom reveals herself. “We never 
dare wake your father, but as soon as he is 
awake Simmons will call me to break the news 
to him.” She nodded dismissal to the watch- 
ful man-servant who glided away from the door 
without having expressed in any manner un- 
derstanding of what had taken place. 

The ugly girl was on her knees gathering up 
the scattered objects and putting them in Aunt 
Hildegarde’s lap without a word to indicate 
her thoughts, or explain her relationship to 
the group; if it had been defined, John had 
been too stunned to grasp distinctions. 

“I felt from the first you were my broth- 
er,” Lucia was saying hysterically, as far as 
possible keeping him all to herself. “I be- 
lieved in you — oh, I want you to know that I 
did believe in you. Only, I was determined 
not to be disappointed again. I have wanted 
you so long. And I have wanted you so — so 

60 


The Picture on the Wall 


61 


hard! I couldn’t think you were dead. When 
even father gave you up, I said — I knew. And 
here you are! Here you are!” 

‘Wes,” he murmured, “there’s nothing more 
wonderful than that — here I am. It seems my 
mind can’t get beyond that.” 

She lifted her head to brush back his hair, 
examining his face through swimming eyes. 
“You are so handsome.” 

“Oh — please!” he gasped, closing his eyes. 

“And just exactly like father at your age.” 

“I wish I could think so.” He faced Aunt 
Hildegarde determinedly: “Did you observe 
the likeness?” 

“My reception of you was cool because, as 
you can well imagine, we have been so often 
deceived,” was the indirect answer. “It was 
so far from our thoughts — and you were dress- 
ed so — so as you are.” 

Her tone of voice opened his eyes to the in- 
congruity of his appearance. He looked rue- 
fully at his clothes. 

“Yes,” Lucia laughed, “aren’t they dreadful ! 
Seeing his countenance fall she hurried to pre- 
sent the ugly girl who proved to be Aunt Hil- 
degarde’s daughter. “You must call her ‘Vir- 
gie.’ She’s the best friend I have in the world, 
and now she’s your best friend. Everything I 
am, of course you are; and everything I have, 
of course you have.” She drew him down be- 
side her on the divan, clinging to his hand. 
Then she jumped up to look him over with the 
most adorable enthusiasm; then resumed her 
seat and his hand with an air of absolute pro- 
prietorship. 

John said to himself, “Of course it was never 
intended for a man to get into heaven with a 
false passport. I wonder what’ll happen to 


62 


The Picture on the Wall 


drive me into outer darkness? This can’t 
last.” 

Lucia, still breathless from joy, gazed up- 
on him fondly. ‘^Are you really glad?” she in- 
sisted; ‘‘I mean glad, glad?^’ 

“Just like that.” 

“You don’t show it. Oh, what a dreadful 
reserved brother I’ve found! Not once have 
you kissed me.” 

He tried to rally. “But you see, I’m not 
used to finding sisters. But if you think I am 
not enjoying it — well! You just go on hold- 
ing my hand. I like that, too. I — I know 
I’m hardly adequate, I’ve been raised so 
queer — ” 

“You are to tell me all about that. I know 
I’m selfish wanting you all to myself, but fa- 
ther’s turn will come. His heart is so uncer- 
tain. We daren’t rouse him. But I simply 
can’t wait till he wakes up. I want to hear 
every little thing that belongs in your life up 
to this hour. Begin at the beginning, dearest 
boy, and don’t leave out a morsel. Are you 
always so good-natured and forgiving when 
people doubt you as we seemed to doubt you 
awhile ago? Darling John, promise never to 
think of that again.” 

While soothing her regret, he was trying des- 
perately to recall the narrative invented in the 
basement of the Smiling Lane tenement. To 
gain time he addressed the girl still kneeling 
on the floor: “Come sit on my other side, Vir- 
gie— then listen, children, to the story of my 
life.” 

Virgie looked eagerly to her mother for per- 
mission, for in spite of her years she was com- 
pletely under the other’s domination. “You’ll 
crowd him,” Aunt Hildegarde decided. 
“Mercy, child, how you stoop! I’d straighten 


The Picture on the Wall 63 

up my figure if I were as high as the moon.” 

Virgie reddened. She had been persecuted 
thus through life, so keen had been her moth- 
er’s disappointment over her lack of beauty. 

“You shall sit on my other side,” John de- 
clared, taking her hand as if she were a prin- 
cess. “And let me say that you are higher 
than the moon in my regard.” Then quickly, 
to divert the mother’s attention from her 
daughter, “What about this Mr. Glaxton who 
has gone away to be absent a month?” On his 
arrival, the name had been used as a threat 
against him; now it seemed to react upon 
them. Into their faces flashed looks of fear 
or distrust, instantly suppressed. 

“He is a lawyer,” Virgie said, her voice 
sharp with precision. 

Lucia spoke constrainedly, “And father’s 
cousin; after us, his nearest relative.” 

“Yes,” Aunt Hildegarde spoke with a note 
of triumph in her cool voice, “first come you 
two — then Mr. Glaxton. It is delightful to 
know that since an hour ago we have found 
another link in the chain of relationship.” 

“It comes to me,” John murmured, “that Mr. 
Glaxton is not a jolly person to have in the 
house.” 

Lucia darted her eyes toward the door as if 
to make sure that Simmons was not listening, 
then grasped his arm intently. “If you 
could — ” She checked herself abruptly, but her 
eyes never left his. 

Virgie muttered, “Oust him!” 

“Virginia,” her mother sighed, “where do 
you pick up such words? Will you never re- 
member the best families?” 

“Just wait till I get in the game,” John 
boasted. “I’ll do for Cousin Glaxton. I guess 
that’s the work in this house cut put for 
me. It’s my pass to this Garden of Eden.” 


CHAPTER X 

JOHN ACCOUNTS FOR HIMSELF 

Confronted by the necessity of giving a full 
account of himself, John was dismayed to find 
that the dizzying experiences of the past hour 
had wrought havoc with his prearranged nar- 
rative. To fortify himself against possible 
cross-examinations, he manoeuvred for time by 
urging the others to define the conditions to 
which in the new home he must adapt himself. 

He learned that J. L. Warring, his ‘‘father” 
had, as a penniless orphan, been taken care of 
by a well-to-do couple to whom, a few years 
later, a daughter was born. Mrs. Abbottsfield 
(“Aunt Hildegarde”) was that daughter; and 
though the orphan-boy had never been legally 
adopted, they lived in the same house until 
his majority as brother and sister. Then War- 
ring went to New York and during feverish 
years of growing prosperity, lost touch with 
those who had made his success possible. He 
married; his first born was kidnapped; and 
after spending an immense sum in the vain 
endeavor to find trace of him, his wife died 
leaving a daughter, Lucia, about ten years old. 

Then his heart turned toward those who had 
been to him father, mother, sister, and he jour- 
neyed to what he had always called “home.’^ 
But his foster-parents had died after severe re- 
verses of fortune, and the daughter, now a 
widow with an only child, was earning her 
living as a social secretary. Warring who had 
conceived a strong dislike for city-life after 
his wife’s death, left New York to bury him- 

64 


The Picture on the Wall 


65 


self in the little river-town of the Middle West 
and hither he brought Mrs. Abbottsfield and 
Virgie to live as intimate members of his fami- 
ly. That was before his health showed 
signs of failing. Mrs. Abbottsfield felt free 
to accept his generosity not so much because 
her parents had once been everything to him 
but because she could serve as governess to 
little Lucia. 

All had gone smoothly until Mr. Glaxton en- 
tered upon the scene, taking Mr. Warring^s 
business affairs in charge. He was a Denver 
lawyer whose connection to the millionaire 
w’as clearly established and Mr. Warring who 
had known nothing of his people developed 
an affection for the other amounting to infat- 
uation. He would not hear a whisper against 
his adviser and during the past year of rapidly 
failing health, even a look of disapproval of 
Glaxton caused the older man’s heart to fiut- 
ter alarmingly. Glaxton had given up his 
Denver practice which was considerable, to de- 
vote all his time to the management of the 
Warring properties. 

fancy I can see through that fellow,” 
John said indignantly. “He came to this little 
village meaning all the time to live off of — 
Mnij but managed it so that he thought he had 
to beg him — that’s Glaxton — ^to build his nest 
right up in his rooftree. I suppose there’s no 
doubt that he is a cousin of — of Twsf” 

“Dear,” Lucia entreated, “call him father.’^ 

“Yes, of course. But are you certain of Mr. 
Glaxton’s kinship?” 

“There is absolutely no doubt possible,” said 
Aunt Hildegarde in a repressed tone. “It’s 
as certain as your own.” 

“Oh, I see,” John murmured uncertainly. 
Jiucia had accepted him wholeheartedly. Mrs. 


66 


The Picture on the Wall 


Abbottsfield had appeared to do the same ; but 
had she? And what was Virgie thinking be- 
hind those big round eyes with their show of 
milky whites? 

Lucia grasped his arm to give it an affec- 
tionate squeeze. ^^Do lePs drop Cousin Glax- 
ton,” she exclaimed vivaciously. ‘When he’s 
here you can’t think of anything else, but let’s 
enjoy our month’s holiday. I’m crazy to hear 
all about you. It’ll be another hour before fa- 
ther can see us, so don’t leave out a thing.” 

His thoughts had not been given up wholly 
to Glaxton; he had made several wild efforts 
to recapture the main points of his story. Up- 
on one thing he was resolved; not to connect 
his mother in any way with his fiction. He 
had seen enough of the world to understand 
that she did not belong to the world his new 
friends inhabited. They would not understand 
how she had spent herself for him at humble 
toil, teaching him to aspire to what she had 
been denied, and how, though so incompetent 
a guide, she had in fact led him to the foot of 
the upward path. “I may not ascend with 
you,” she had in effect said; “but yonder is 
the setting for your solitary adventures.” He 
would have liked to explain how the obscure 
woman had installed bright dreams in his 
mind and preserved him from the arrogance 
of ignorance. Since this could not be reveal- 
ed, he was resolved not to invent another wo- 
man to take her place for he was jealous for 
the sacrificing devotion of her who had died 
in his arms. Yet how could his story be told 
with no mention of her gentle hand on his pil- 
low, her cheery voice at the door? 

With their eyes fixed intently upon him, he 
realized how difficult it was going to be to 
hide the truth. But John was always at his 


The Picture on the Wall 


67 


best when most hardly beset, and he began in 
his easiest manner.' “I was born — wait; I^m 
back too far. The first things I can remem- 
ber : Pm a kid living in New Orleans. I guess 
you can call it living. Pretty hard living! 
Pm with the man who kidnapped me, Jake 
P>axter — you know the man your father wrote 
the letters to.” 

^^Our father,” Lucia corrected him. 

^^Certainly. Do you see my abductor? A 
big, ox-jawed bully of a man with fists like 
sledge-hammers and a way of swearing to raise 
your hair on end. At first he expected to get 
a fortune out of my bones — rsuch of ’em, I 
mean, as he didn’t break when knocking me 
about. Meant to take me back home when 
he could do it in safety to himself. When I 
was big enough to catch the vision that beat- 
ings are not real necessities of life, I ran away. 
I’d always wanted an education and I was 
determined to get one or die trying. So one 
cold bitter night with the snow up to your 
shoetops — ” 

^‘This was New Orleans?” Virgie murmured 
questioningly. 

^Wes, that was the year that froze the ba- 
nanas on the bushes. I went East and got a 
job. I think I’ve done every kind of work — 
except act as waiter at a restaurant. I drew 
a line at eating-houses. I sure fought for an 
education but at last got it down with both 
hands around its throat. If all the books I’ve 
read were in this room, you and I would have 
to go out in the hall. Understand me, my 
knowledge is fearfully limited, of course, but 
there are a million things in my mind I’ve 
never ha:d a chance to use. I’ve been thrown 
all my life with the kind of people who didn’t 
care whether Hamlet was mad or not. To pick 


68 


The Picture on the Wall 


up my learning I^ve literally scoured the 
country ; been everywhere, I think, except Kan- 
sas City. I was on my way to Philadelphia 
when I got a wire saying Thompson was dy- 
ing — to come quick, he had an important secret 
to tell me concerning my parents.” 

^Who was Thompson?” Lucia asked, listen- 
ing absorhedly. 

‘‘Don’t you know? — the man that kidnapped 
me.” 

“But Ms name,” Aunt Hildegarde said with 
a gasp, “his name is Jake Baxter.” 

“Yes — but he’d been breaking into banks and 
that sort of thing, and had to change his name. 
He was Thompson at the last. But he’s the 
same person you’re speaking of. Of course his 
real name was Jake Baxter. So I hurried to 
New Orleans where I’d never expected to set 
foot again. And there on his deathbed, he 
told me everything and turned over the articles 
of identification that he’d kept all this while 
in an old suitcase. He’d lost track of the man 
he’d stolen the child from — ” 

“Father,” Lucia prompted him. 

“Yes, certainly; didn’t have any idea where 
he was living or he’d have drained him long 
ago. But an article came out in the paper 
during his last sickness and he saw the piece 
and found out. He died and I came straight 
here. I’d always thought that kidnapper was 
my father. I’d never suspicioned my name 
was John Lyle Warring, never once.” 

“Will you be satisfied to live in a quiet little 
town after all your wonderful adventures?” 
Lucia asked wistfully. 

“Satisfied !” he exclaimed. “With you here?” 
After their acquaintanceship grew deeper, he 
remarked, “I wish I’d put as much time in at 
law as I have at Greek and Latin. Then per- 


The Picture on the Wall 


69 


haps I could persuade Mr. Glaxton to go back 
to Denver. I know a lot about police courts 
and all that, but I’m afraid my law isn’t 
legal.” 

When Simmons came to announce that Mr. 
Warring was awake, Mrs. Abbottsfield went 
upstairs to break the news. Lucia dared not 
show her father the betraying radiance of her 
face. 


CHAPTER XI 

DOES HE RESEMBLE THE PICTURE? 

John’s compunctions over rousing false hopes 
in Mr. J. L. Warring, his aversion to the de- 
ceptive part he had assumed as Lucia’s brother, 
and the realization that always the danger of 
exposure hung over his head dwindled in a 
brief time to insignificance. Nor was this be- 
cause to have acted otherwise must have 
proved his undoing. His acceptance of the sit- 
uation was not based upon negative grounds. 
During the first interview with the million- 
aire he found how incredibly weak he was, just 
hovering, as it appeared, upon the borderline be- 
tween life and the Great Silence. 

The reaction induced by the recovery of his 
“son” was marvelous. It was not that Mr. 
Warring became a new man, rather that he 
became a man, the master of his own desires, 
his own actions. For months he had existed 
in a state of apathy, staying in bed or being 
laboriously helped downstairs according to the 
advice of Mr. Glaxton — ^or, during Mr. Glax- 
ton’s absence, of Simmons the man-servant 
whom Mr. Glaxton had brought with him from 
Colorado. 

But now Mr. Warring knew exactly what he 
wanted: to be constantly with John and the 
rest of the family ; and Simmons who had grad- 
ually encroached with his ministrations till 
he had become the autocrat of the sickroom, 
found himself reduced to the status of an ordi- 
nary employe. 

Spring was opening up delightfully, and a 


70 


The Picture on the Wall 


71 


few days after John’s coming, Mr. Warring 
with one arm about him and the other resting 
upon Lucia’s shoulder, toured the premises dis- 
cussing gardening and the making of new 
lawn-beds, and declaring his purpose of going 
to church and taking up his business at the 
bank. Though John had seen nothing of his 
slowing fading away in the flesh and of his 
losing grip on the interests of life, he 
had been told about it and even without having 
been told must partly have understood. No 
one could take such immense zest in the com- 
monest experiences of a secluded life had he 
not for a long time lost zest in everything. 
Mr. Warring was like a prisoner unexpectedly 
given freedom and John realized that his com- 
ing had wrought the transformation. When 
he should vanish from the scene it would no 
doubt terribly shock the old man who, how- 
ever, would be none the worse for the episode 
— might indeed be the better for it since he al- 
ready looked younger. 

His rapt attention while John related ex- 
periences from his turbulent life brought the 
sparkle to his deep-set eyes, his form would 
straighten, his thin cheeks glow, his shock of 
white hair seem to bristle with renewed vital- 
ity. What a simple-hearted, conflding man! 
How could John help loving an audience that 
hung so breathlessly upon his every word ? The 
old man and the girl grew dear to him and 
it was his steadfast purpose so long as he 
must hide under their roof to be to them a son 
and a brother; also to remain as long as Blear- 
stead kept away. But the moment it became a 
question of getting money from these trustful 
friends for Blearstad or for himself, he would 
flee though that might mean State’s prison. 
These reflections did something to rob the days 


72 


The Picture on the Wall 


of a part of their charm. Regret that he was 
not what he appeared and realization that 
once driven out he could never come back lent 
vague unreality to everything he said or did. 
He told himself he was no longer John Walters 
but John Lyle Warring and to preserve the 
incognito he sought to enter into the feelings 
that could belong by right only to John Lyle 
Warring. In this he was so successful — for his 
adaptability had always been marvelous — that 
when he thought of one day resuming his old 
self he felt cold as if stripped of covering in 
an icy wind. 

“Yes, I’m going to take up everything right 
where I dropped it,” Mr. Warring enthusias- 
tically declared as the three slowly promenaded 
the garden still brown with last year’s leaves. 
“There’s the bank; a few years ago I was the 
president, and I’m still a director. I’ll go 
there daily as I used to, meet the boys and 
gossip in my easy chair before one of the big 
windows. If a farmer’s wagon or a stray dog 
comes to Lagville it passes before that bank- 
window. I always spent a couple of hours 
there in the afternoon. Your Cousin Glaxton 
got me out of the habit, I hardly know why. 
I’ll work you into a place there — no, I’ve been 
turning over a big lumber scheme for you, 
John. You ought to be at the head of a big 
business. I own a lot of timber-land and a 
string of lumberyards in small towns. But all 
that must come latei^. I’ll have to take a trip 
and nose around a bit before Cousin Glax- 
ton comes back — he’s always afraid I’ll overdo 
my strength. And there’s church. Your 
mother was a devoted member, and after I lost 
her, I found some comfort there. No one was 
a more regular attendant at services until — 
well, it seems I’ve dropped everything. Lucia 


The Picture on the Wall 


73 


keeps up the family religion. IPs very curious, 
now that I think of it, how all my old habits 
are broken. John, what church are you a 
member of?’^ 

^‘I’ve never taken the vows,^^ John answered 
with deep solemnity. 

^^But you’re young. Listen, my boy: when 
your heart’s broken, there’s nothing else. I 
shall be cruelly distressed if you are antago- 
nistic to the church.” 

^‘Don’t you have one uneasy moment over 
that,” John said heartily. ^^If you want me to 
go to church, that’s where I’m going. How 
often is it ?” 

Lucia laughed. Her smile was one he had 
grown used to look for, full of whimsical hu- 
mor softened by deep affection, and it was 
enough to make her smile just to look up and 
find before her the brother she had yearned 
for throughout life. “Twice on Sunday and 
every Wednesday night.” She bent her head 
behind her father’s shoulder to give him one 
of those adorable smiles. “And just think! — 
always alone, for Aunt Hildegarde and Virgie 
belong to a different church.” 

“You’ll never go alone while I’m in the city,” 
John declared. “And as to that other church 
— couldn’t we go to both of ’em? Couldn’t be 
too often to suit me; not with you.” 

“Bless your heart, it does me good to hear 
you.” Mr. Warring squeezed his arm. “Your 
Cousin Glaxton has taken a violent antipathy 
to our minister and is determined to drive him 
away. He thinks of course that he has just 
cause, but I’m sure he must be mistaken.” 

“Our minister is a splendid young man,” 
Lucia declared glowingly. 

John felt a lowering of his spirits. “Single 
man?” he hazarded. 


74 


The Picture on the Wall 


^Wes — but he’s engaged.” 

John sighed, ^‘Then I’m for him.” 

Mr. Warring spoke hesitatingly: ^Wour 
Cousin Glaxton is mistaken in him, I’m sure. 
But he is so set against him — that may be one 
reason why I quit going to church. But the 
minister never comes near — he ought to hunt 
me up, oughtn’t he? I hardly understand.” 
He passed his hand through his hair. hard- 
ly know what has taken place about me the 
' past eight months. I have been in a sort of 
daze. It’s my heart. My heart has been ter- 
ribly out of order. But you’ve made it whole, 
my boy.” 

This was spoken with such touching simplic- 
ity that dimness came to the young man’s 
eyes. He wondered at the affection his pres- 
ence had evoked. Why did they like him? 
That he should love them seemed the most nat- 
ural thing in the world. But what, he asked 
himself, was there about him to win their love? 
Possibly his unconsciousness of charm might 
have partly met the question. 

Lucia murmured, “We are rather unfortu- 
nate in our friends as far as the church is con- 
cerned. I have no right to reproach Mr. Glax- 
ton.” 

Her father corrected her; “Call him Cousin 
Glaxton, my dear.” 

“Because,” Lucia went on, “Eugene Ware 
is just as determined to drive away our min- 
ister. He is very bitter against him and, in- 
deed, against the members of the church. I 
seem to be his only exception.” 

John looked around Mr. Warring to scru- 
tinize her countenance. “Who’s this Eugene 
Ware?” he asked abruptly. 

She blushed and for once did not meet his 
eyes. 


The Picture on the Wall 


75 


iMr. Warring said, ^‘Eugene and Lncia are 
to be married the first of Jnne.’^ 

“You don’t mean it!” John exclaimed. 
“Shall we go in the house? Seems chilly out 
here.” 

The next afternoon John sought Virgie Ab- 
bottsfield, finding her in the upstairs living- 
room, busily sewing. He drew up his chair 
with a confidential smile. “Sewing the wed- 
ding garments — ^what?” 

■Virgie had so long been used to social neg- 
lect that John’s friendship never lost for her 
the freshness of its charm. She never felt that 
she should straighten up when he came 
through the door, or that he was seeing her 
nose when looking into her eyes. 

“Tell me,” he continued, “just what sort of 
chump is this Eugene Ware.” 

Virgie kept her gaze upon her needle. “He’s 
good-looking and just the right age for Lucia, 
and he’s the proprietor and owner of the Ware 
Drygoods Company. The girls consider him 
the ^catch’ of Lagville. There’s no other young 
man so prominent. He belongs to one of the 
best families and he has a good deal of money.” 

“I suppose there’s nothing criminal against 
him?” John suggested, hot hopefully. 

Virgie opened her eyes, showing a great deal 
of the whites. “He’s at the head of our best 
set.” 

“ ^Our best set,’ ” J ohn echoed disconsolately, 
“I wouldn’t think Lagville big enough to have 
two sets in it without crowding one of ’em 
into the river. But I suppose there never was 
but one time when everybody belonged to the 
best family and that was when Cain and Abel 
were kids. Just between us, Virgie, what does 
a fellow do in this burg to pass the time? Of 
course I appreciate the opportunity of making 


76 


The Picture on the Wall 


church three times a week, but that must leave 
a good many hours unoccupied.’’ 

^‘We have our Moving Picture Palace,” Vir- 
gie said brightly. 

“Yes, and I’ll bet that’s where Eugene Ware 
is sitting himself up while Lucia is doing time 
at the meeting-house. But I’ll put a stop to 
that.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“I mean he’ll go to church, and he’ll swallow 
that minister while I’m in the city. Lucia is 
unhappy about him, but I’ll lead him right up 
to the front seat and make him graze on that 
young minister’s discourses.” 

She shook her head. “Eugene is a very hard 
man to lead.” 

“All right; don’t say anything to her about 
it. This is a little secret between you and me. 
Of course if she knew he’d been dragged there 
by force she wouldn’t find the sacrifice so ac- 
ceptable.” 

Virgie still shook her head. 

“That’s all right, Virgie, I know how you 
feel. But you don’t realize how determined I 
am that Lucia shall be happy. Now, give me 
a line on this affair, that’s a good fellow : all I 
need to know is this: does Lucia think Eu- 
gene Ware a through ticket to happiness with 
no stop-overs?” 

She regarded her needle intently. 

“It makes me feel ashamed to talk like the 
words to sheet-music, but this is too important 
to stand on dignity so I ask in plain words, is 
she really and truly and forever in love with 
this — shall I say lobster?” 

“One thing I am sure of,” Virgie said at last ; 
“the marriage will take place the first of June. 
Many things may happen before two-and-a-half 
months pass, but nothing ever happens to 


The Picture on the Wall 


77 


change Eugene Ware’s mind ; and Lucia would- 
n’t break her word, even if she wanted to.” 

^^If they think everything of each other, of 
course it ought to come off. All right, then. 
I’ll head the young gentleman up to the main 
aisle of the church and stop the fight against 
the minister. I guess that’s the point of the 
thorn. And now — another thing. I need your 
help. It has come to me that I’m not suitably 
dressed for the scion of a royal house of Lag- 
ville. But the governor doesn’t notice anything 
except that he has his boy again, and Lucia 
is afraid of hurting my feelings by making sug- 
gestions. It’ll occur to you that I ought to 
consult my sister in these domestic matters, but 
I just can’t. I want to appear the proper 
thing, but I can’t ask her opinion. See? Of 
course it’s pride or some other ignoble feeling 
that makes me want, all the time I’m with her, 
to keep keyed up to concert pitch. Now with 
you, Virgie, I don’t know why, but I can let 
down my e-string and be as comfortable as you 
please. It comes to me that we are going to be 
the best friends on the river. You’ve seen how 
I could talk to you about Eugene Ware and all 
that. It would choke me if I started it with 
Lucia. Now take a good look at me and say 
what’s the matter. My difficulty is that I feel 
so awfully complete. If I knew of anything 
I needed, I’l go buy it. Yet all the time I can 
see that your mother is weighing me and find- 
ing me nothing but a handwriting on the wall.” 

For the first time in a long while, Virgie 
laughed aloud. Her mother who happened to 
be passing down the hall, looked in and said, 
^^Mercy, child! how noisy you are. And how 
you are stooping over! Please sit straighter. 
Virginia.” 

Virgie cringed and Mrs. Abbottsfield passed 


78 


The Picture on the Wall 


on. John urged, ‘‘Let’s take it right up where 
we bit off the thread.” 

She recovered much quicker than was her 
wont. “My advice is, consult Brother Tred- 
mill — everybody in town calls your minister 
‘Brother’ whether of his church or not. Broth- 
er Tredmill will tell you exactly how you should 
be dressed.” 

“Oh, I say ! Look here : is he a man as well 
as a minister?” 

“Keally, John, I want you to consult him; 
you’ll never regret it.” 

“But wouldn’t it be an impertinence to ask 
him to clothe both the inner and the outer 
man? No? Then I’ll see him this very even- 
ing. Now, another thing; the way I express 
myself — You must understand that I like my 
way. But your mother doesn’t. I want to 
express myself in such a way as to give the 
password to the best families. Look here: 
when you and I are together, couldn’t you give 
me a few points? And when there’s a crowd 
about, every time I let out something that I 
think particularly good when it isn’t, couldn’t 
you put up your hand as if to smooth your 
hair? It might give you the arm ache the first 
few days, but I’m quick to get onto all sorts 
of new curves. Will you play my short-stop? 
You see I have a part to fill as John Lyle War- 
ring that I’ve had no chance to rehearse. But if 
you will sit behind the fiies with the prompt- 
er’s book, I know I can work through without 
falling over the footlights.” 

Virgie glowed with excitement. Into her 
drab life something had entered to stir her 
heart as she had not dreamed it could be 
stirred. She could not remember she was ugly 
when he was with her, therefore lost the look 
of discontent and the slump of indifference 


The Picture on the Wall 79 

that did much to make her aspect forbidding. 

^Wirgie/’ he asked abruptly, “do you think 
I resemble the governor?’^ 

She corrected him: “Father.’’ 

“Yes, certainly; him.” 

“He is so broken,” she murmured; “not real- 
ly old; but old-looking.” 

“Yes, but did I ever look like him? You 
never believed from the first that I looked like 
his picture on the wall.” 

“I never looked like my mother,” Virgie 
sighed. 

“I don’t look like that picture. I’m all dif- 
ferent. But there’s something I cam get 
onto — 

Virgie put her hand to her hair and he 
laughed, but the next moment grew very seri- 
ous. 

“There’s something I mean to accomplish — 
with your help. I am going to look like that 
picture before I leave this house — I mean, be- 
fore I die, you understand. Not the features, 
that isn’t it, but the expression; I want to be 
like that; a gentleman. Not that I doubt I’m 
a gentleman, but I want to show the gentle- 
man, and show it so unmistakably that I won’t 
have to watch myself doing it. You can’t see 
that my hair and eyes and nose and mouth and 
chin are like those in the wall-picture. Neither 
can I. But I want you one day to be able to 
say that in spite of the difference, I’m like that 
picture on the wall. All this, not for my sake 
but his; and Lucia’s.” 

There was an eagerness in his frank eyes, a 
wistfulness about his lips, that touched her 
deeply. He stretched out his hand and she 
took it impulsively. “I’m not so sure,” she 
told him, “but there’s a little resemblance al- 
ready.” 


CHAPTER XII 

SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED 

As yet the village had not been formally pre- 
sented to John because his ‘^father’’ and ^^sis- 
ter” wanted him all to themselves, but natural- 
ly everybody had heard about the recovered 
heir and smiled in neighborly fashion on pass- 
ing the yard-gate. Though he had not been off 
the place, he had no difficulty, that evening, in 
finding the boarding-house where the Rev. 
Harry Tredmill lodged. The landlady knew 
at first glance who he was because, as she said, 
he looked like his father, but in reality be- 
cause he was the only stranger in the village. 

She sent him upstairs where the minister 
had two rooms, a library with a bedroom in the 
rear. John found it unnecessary to introduce 
himself and was rejoiced to find in his host 
a man to whom one instinctively opened his 
heart. Tredmill was young and rather serious- 
minded with a rich ministerial atmosphere in 
his speech and intonation. He was thoroughly 
sincere and somewhat worn out in his intense 
desire to uplift a world determined not to be 
uplifted. One saw clearly enough that there 
was no affectation in him. He could not say 
^‘Sunday” like other men, for to him it was 
solely “Sabbath,’’ and his promises were con- 
ditioned by consent of the Divine Will. Many 
of his forms of speech had been worn smooth 
from having so often been jingled in ecclesias- 
tical usage, but when he cast them down in 
exchange somehow they rang true. 

Even if he had not been normally of a trust- 

80 


The Picture on the Wall 


81 


ful nature, it would have been impossible to 
resist John’s ingenuous confidence. ‘Wou see 
how it is, Brother Tredmill: nobody at home 
but women and an .old gentleman who’s let 
himself down. All my togs are brand-new, 
but something’s wrong. I want you to go with 
me early in the morning and fit me out for the 
race.” 

‘^Surely, surely.” The minister seemed to 
understand everything by instinct, to appraise 
at full value the reasons for John’s ignorance 
of form, to think it natural that he should 
be consulted rather than one of the family. 
That was one reason why people liked to con- 
fide in the youpg minister; his sympathetic 
understanding came to meet them at the door 
of their reserve. 

John warmed to him. “I knew if you were 
anything like the description Miss Virgie Ab- 
bottsfield had painted, we’d get along fine. 
You’re going to find me your right-hand bower 
at all the Wednesday and Sunday meets. Now 
thaPs all right, Brother Tredmill, don’t thank 
me, the pleasure’s all mine. I’ll be glad to 
help you along by filling up as much of a pew 
as I can spread over. How’s your attendance 
kept up, anyhow? Maybe I can help.” 

regret to say. Brother Warring, the at- 
tendance leaves much greatly to be desired. 1 
find particular trouble among the men and 
boys. I’ve toiled day and night — however, it’s 
not for me to speak of my labors. It seems 
that the young men cannot be induced to help 
build up the kingdom.” 

‘‘I’ll get ’em there, set your mind on some- 
thing else.” 

The minister regarded him not hopefully. 
“I think I have tried every method of reach- 
ing the uninterested.” 


82 


The Picture on the Wall 


herd ^em in. Yon be thinking what to 
hand them when IWe got ^em bunched togeth- 
er with the bars up. You can get a mob to 
do almost anything the first time. But if they 
come again, iPs because they want to — see?’’ 

After he had bade him good-by, John turned 
back from the head of the stairs. “Look here. 
Brother Tredmill, you and I are going to be 
friends, and between friends there shouldn’t 
be any gate nailed up in the fence. As anx- 
ious as you are to build up your business — 
why haven^t you been to see my governor?” 

A slight color stained the thin cheeks, but 
Tredmill answered with his usual gentleness: 
“I was turned from the door with orders from 
your father never to come again. It is an in- 
explicable thing that he should have taken so 
violent an antipathy to me that the mere men- 
tion of my name sets his heart to palpitating 
dangerously.” 

“I suppose that’s what Mr. Glaxton told 
you ?” 

“He verily did. He met me there at the door 
and later came here to explain the situation. 
He behaved in a gentlemanly manner but I 
could perceive that he is a sadly worldly man. 
A very, very worldly man.” 

“You didn’t mention this to Lucia?” 

“I could not wound her; and it would have 
been to no purpose.” 

John slowly went back to the minister’s 
study. “Look here. Brother Tredmill, what 
do you know about this man Glaxton?” 

“Of course,” with constraint, “you know he 
is your father’s cousin.” 

“It seems we can’t get out of that. I’ve ex- 
amined the Bible-files. But that’s nothing. 
There’s more solid meat in abusing your rela- 


The Picture on the Wall 


83 


tives than other people, so if you know any- 
thing about Glaxton, hand it over.’’ 

Tredmill shook his solemn head. ‘^He stays 
very closely at home — I mean your father’s 
home — except when abroad on business for 
your father, who for some time has been able 
to look after none of his affairs. Mr. Glaxton 
has been given power of attorney; he directs 
everything.” 

John muttered, ‘^And has been given power 
of conscience too, apparently.” Suddenly he 
pounced upon a new topic. ^What about this 
Eugene Ware? Don’t think strange that I 
should drag in the family, for you know more 
about it than I do. A few days ago I didn’t 
know I had it. Is he worthy of Lucia?” 

^^His reputation is good. I think his tastes 
are not your sister’s tastes ; they are very un- 
like but I hope they may find true happiness. 
It is possible that happiness is the easier real- 
ized when two people look at it from different 
life-angles.” 

John slyly hinted, ^^Haven’t had experience 
in that line?” 

Tredmill fiushed and laughed with sudden 
boyishness. ‘^Not yet — but soon, I hope,” he 
exclaimed, looking like a man who has tem- 
porarily emerged from his official capacity. 

John grasped his hand. “I wish I could 
say, ^Here too,’ ” 

Tredmill confided bashfully, ‘^She’s a great 
friend of your sister’s and occasionally visits 
her for a week or so at a time — she lives in a 
distant city.” 

“Is the church willing? I know more about 
religion than some people imagine. What 
about the old cats?” 

The other’s countenance fell. He started to 
say something, then checked himself. He was 


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The Picture on the Wall 


too honest to pretend not to understand. At 
last he admitted ‘‘It is verily a difficult situa- 
tion.” 

John fixed him with his bright eye. “What 
about the choir?” 

“Oh!” Tredmill groaned, clasping his head 
with both hands. 

John went home feeling that his hands were 
full. EDe must watch Glaxton — the lawyer, 
cousin though he undoubtedly was, must be a 
cold and bloodless schemer to have installed 
himself in the bosom of the family that he 
might systematically deceive his benefactor. 
And there was Eugene Ware, evidently a hard- 
headed, unsympathetic merchant, refusing to 
accommodate himself to the ardent desires of 
his betrothed — after marriage he would prove 
as unyielding as granite. He regretted that 
Lucia should be engaged to any one. He would 
have liked to think of her as a sweet unattach- 
ed spirit caring for no one more than she did 
for him. However, since she had given her 
heart, it was his brotherly duty to make sure 
that it had been worthily received. 

These two tasks, he told himself, were as 
important as they were difficult and in some 
degree justified the deception practiced upon 
J. L. Warring. However, on reaching home 
he found that something had happened which 
caused him to forget to seek excuses for im- 
personating the kidnapped heir. Instead, he 
clung to his role from the sheer instinct of 
self-preservation. 


CHAPTER XIII 

SAFE FOR THE PRESENT 

In the spacious Warring reception hall he 
found awaiting him the three women of his 
new family, all in a high degree of excitement. 
Any such general change of countenance was 
enough to arouse fear of discovery ; he seemed to 
breathe danger on the very air and he braced 
himself, his determination not to look afraid 
causing him to overshoot the mark. His man- 
ner was debonair as he gazed first upon one 
then upon another, at the same time from in- 
tense nervousness balancing himself queerly 
upon the farthest points of his heels, a feat as 
difficult as it was void of grace. Sustained 
thus in all unconsciousness, he made a mirac- 
ulous presentation that might have caused a 
stranger to seek above his head for sustaining 
wires. 

Virgie, mindful of her part as prompter, put 
her hand desperately and very obviously to 
her hair. 

John caught the gesture and said blankly, 
^^But I haven^t said a word.’^ 

‘‘Brother,” Lucia hastily interposed, “please 
sit down.” She turned to Mrs. Abbottsfield 
who was eyeing J ohn with astonishment. 
“LePs all sit down. Aunt Hildegarde.” Then 
to John: “Father retired early and we are 
exceedingly glad of it, for we’ve had a strange 
interview that would have disturbed him 
dreadfully.” 

“Strange interview?” repeated John, striv- 
ing to appear calm, but so certain that Blear- 

86 


86 


The Picture on the Wall 


stead had been in that hall during his absence 
that he threw his weight on the back legs of 
his chair and strove desperately to shift the 
burden to a single leg. ^‘How do you mean?’^ 

“Two dreadful men were here.’’ 

John said to himself, “Not only Blearstead, 
but Oleek!” 

Mrs. Abbottsfleld shuddered. “We never 
expected to be brought into contact with such 
creatures. John — they were detectives!’^ 

He grew a dull red. “What were the vil- 
lains doing here?” 

“Brother,” Lucia cried with animation, 
“you’d have laughed if you could have heard 
them.” 

“Would I? Oh, yes, of course I would. Do 
tectives, you say? No doubt they were amus- 
ing. What did they have to talk about?” 

“They claimed to have traced a young man to 
this town — and really, he must have come to 
Lagville the same day you came. As soon as 
he got off the train he called for a suitcase at 
the express office and hasn’t been seen since. 
The amusing thing was that they thought you 
might be that young man.” 

“No wonder you imagined I’d have laughed 
to hear that!” 

“Yes. At first it was hard to make them 
understand anything. I had always read that 
detectives are immensely clever, but these two 
men must be very poor specimens of their pro- 
fession. They were determined that you should 
be that young man ! We had to describe your 
very clothes to show that you didn’t come to 
Lagville dressed as their escaped prisoner — 
that’s what their young man is, an escaped 
burglar.” 

“Where are these blockheads?” 

“They were determined to wait here to see 


The Picture on the Wall 


87 


you/’ Lucia cried indignantly. ^‘Tliey showed 
ns pictures of the wretch they’re hunting and 
wanted to know if you looked like them. Of 
course there wasn’t the slightest resemblance. 
At last Aunt Hildegarde showed them father’s 
picture on the wall. She explained that you 
were the living image of that portrait. Then 
they said their man didn’t look anything like 
that, and they went away.” 

^^And I told them,” Virgie cried, ^‘that al- 
though you’ve traveled about so much, you’ve 
never been to Kansas City, for you told us so. 
The person they are after lives in Kansas City 
with his uncle.” 

<<yirginia,” her mother murmured, ^‘your 
voice is so sharp. Do soften it.” 

^^Did they fall for what you said?” 

Virgie smoothed her hair. 

^^My meaning was this.” John collected his 
bewildered wits : “Did they accept your 
statements without reserve?” 

Virgie said oracularly, “They did and they 
didn’t.” 

“Oh, I see,” he murmured, compressing his 
lips in intense thought. “That’s a very nice 
distinction. Where are they now?” 

“But Virgie r Lucia protested. “They were 
perfectly convinced. They ran from here to 
catch the train back to Kansas City.” 

“Virgie,” her mother complained, “one never 
knows how to take you.” 

“Virgie,” John said with gentle desperation, 
“what do you mean by your ^do’ and your 
^don’t’?” 

“They went away,” Virgie conceded, “but I 
thought they looked as if they might come 
back. I’m hoping they’ll find their burglar 
somewhere else. But if they don’t, I believe 
they’ll come here again.” 


88 


The Picture on the Wall 


‘^Let them come/’ Lucia flashed. 

^Wes,” John agreed. should say it might 
be a good thing to train Simmons to deal with 
the scamps. Simmons looks like he could do 
for a couple of detectives. Just what are they 
trying to And, anyway?” 

^‘It’s a man named John Walters, a house- 
breaker and thief, a terrible desperado, the 
very one — But I haven’t told you about 
that.” She smiled at him with sudden ten- 
derness, and in his joy at the sunshine that 
danced in her eyes beneath the golden hair, 
his danger suddenly seemed inflnitely remote. 

“There is so much I haven’t told you yet,” 
she went on. “We’re so new to each other! 
Anyway, my dearest friend — after Virgie — 
lives in Kansas City : Alice Klade — you seem 
to have heard of her.” 

“For the second I thought I had,” he gasped, 
swallowing hard. 

“You read of her in the dreadful newspapers, 
of course. The man the detectives were look- 
ing for is the John Walters who broke into her 
home less than a week ago. She woke up to 
And him standing near her bed with, oh, such 
a terrible look in his eyes!” 

“Good heavens!” John ejaculated, “is that 
your friend? I mean the lady. Yes, I read 
all about it. Very interesting reading mat- 
ter. But — I say! And you actually know 
her !” 

She laughed at his rueful amazement. 
“We’re intimate. You’ll find that I know oth- 
er famous people, if I do live in a little town 
lost on the riverbank ! Poor Alice nearly died 
from terror right then and there.” 

“But I didn’t gather that he was so dread- 
ful,” John protested. “The papers called him 
the Polite Burglar.” 


The Picture on the Wall 


89 


^‘You know how the papers distort facts. 
Alice says he was perfectly frightful. But he 
went away without murdering her as she ex- 
pected. Of course that was polite in him 

think you’re pretty hard on him,” Vir- 
gin objected. ^‘As an abandoned outcast of 
society it seems that he behaved rather de- 
cently.” 

John smiled at her somewhat grimly. ‘‘It 
seems to be one of your cases of ‘did’ and 
‘didn’t.’ ” 

Lucia smiled at him. “Alice is coming on 
the fifteenth of next month to spend a week.” 
Then she blushed slightly, imagining he would 
in some way connect the proposed visit with 
her approaching marriage. She hurried on. 
“And when she comes we’ll have her tell us 
all about it and minutely describe her unin- 
vited midnight caller.” 

John started up, looking to right and left, 
then with a deep breath reseated himself. In 
answer to their surprised looks he murmured, 
“I was thinking of going somewhere — But 
I’ve concluded to stay where I am.” 


CHAPTER XIV 

LUCIA IN THE MOONLIGHT 

John planned to stay in Lagville until the 
day before Alice Klade^s visit. This would 
give him a week to find out whether or not 
Glaxton was bent upon evil designs. Con- 
vinced that the lawyer was a dangerous schem- 
er, it helped to reconcile him to his anoma- 
lous position in the household to think of frus- 
trating his schemes, then vanishing just before 
the arrival of her who must recognize in him 
her ‘Tolite Burglar.’’ If he could drive Glax- 
ton away before his escape, doubtless the vil- 
lage would recall the adage that it takes a 
thief to catch a thief. He would be remem- 
bered as a rascal who, after all, was not whol- 
ly bad and this seemed the best he could ex- 
pect from the verdict of the world. In the 
meantime he would act as if unmenaced by the 
slightest danger. 

Changes in his dress and manner were as- 
tonishing. So scrupulously did he imitate the 
Rev. Harry Tredmill with whom much of his 
spare time was passed, that his tone of voice 
and at times his very choice of words be- 
trayed the ministerial touch ; in the meantime 
Virgie did much to eliminate slangy phrases 
of which he was overfond and unconventional 
poses involving the pocketing of one’s hands. 
It was like learning a new science, and John 
pursued it with the same enthusiasm he had 
devoted to his other studies. In the seclusion 
of his room, while breathing in the atmosphere 
of its refinement, he tried to match himself in 

90 


The Picture on the Wall 91 

thought and outward showing with the books 
and pictures — the thousand objects that seem- 
ed so natural here but which would have ap- 
peared astounding in Blearstead’s Eating 
House. 

Hours were spent with his ^^father’’ in going 
over plans bearing upon his career — the 
launching of big business affairs of which, as 
soon as possible, he was to be the head. It was 
all like a fairy tale, and despite his resolution 
to banish the future from his scheme of things, 
often his heart was wrung when it flashed over 
him how tremendous must be the other^s dis- 
appointment when he should vanish into thin 
air. 

A few evenings after the coming of the de- 
tectives, a reception was given at the Warring 
mansion in John^s_ honor. It was a great and 
rare event in Lagville, so long had it been since 
the millionaire had appeared among his 
friends. Everything was done to honor the 
returned heir whom the village folk received 
without reserve, flrst for the sake of his fami- 
ly, then almost from the flrst moment because 
of his genial friendliness. He had the magic 
of rousing spring-memories in the aged, and 
bringing a warm glow to the hearts of the 
lonely. 

The occasion lingered in his memory as a 
series of pictures of Lucia. First, here was 
Lucia coming down the stairs to him before 
the first arrival, so wonderfully dressed that 
she seemed a new wonder with every bit of 
the old wonder preserved but somehow trans- 
figured; a smiling Lucia, a gloriously radiant 
Lucia before whom he was very shy. And 
when the orchestra from a neighboring town 
was filling the air with delicious strains to 
mingle with the murmur of happy voices, the 


92 


The Picture on the Wall 


sight of this wonderful Lucia all creamy white 
and blue and gold, made him unutterably sad. 
But when later he found her sequestered in a 
fern-nook with a man he never could appre- 
ciate at his real value because he was her ac- 
cepted lover, John lost his shyness. After- 
wards, he and Lucia were in that nook, he 
hardly knew how except that she had read and 
helped his wish, and Eugene Ware was gone. 
He tried to be to her only a brother and cer- 
tainly never once did she regard him in any 
other light. But sometimes he wondered — and 
long after that reception-night, he dreamed 
strange dreams. 

His ‘TatheP’ had resumed his old-time habit 
of spending two afternoon hours in the bank, 
now with John to bear him company; and he 
was never prouder than when they set forth 
for church, Lucia’s father in the middle while 
Mrs. Abbottsfield and Virgie followed to the 
corner where they turned off to their particular 
denomination. In Lagville, congregations 
were small, but there were as many denomi- 
nations to be found as anywhere. 

The Kev. Mr. Tredmill could hardly believe 
his eyes on the second Sunday when a long 
line of young fellows trooped rather sheepish- 
ly down the aisle and filled the front bench 
which not even the most -seasoned attendant 
could be induced to occupy. He glanced in- 
voluntarily toward John but received no sign 
from that serious-faced worshiper, nor did the 
young men once glance back at him. After 
the benediction they passed John in the yard 
as if they had never seen him before and when 
Mr. Warring called back the son of one of his 
old friends to present him to ^^my boy,” they 
shook hands with solemn ceremony, and were 
‘‘glad to know” each other. 


The Picture on the Wall 


93 


If the acquirement of ^^good form’’ was like 
a course in education, John felt, toward the 
end of the month, that he was crowned with 
a diploma by the finality of Lucia’s high 
praise. They were seated on the front steps in 
the moonlight where she had been lightly 
touching the guitar to his many songs, wonder- 
ful songs in ragtime that made one’s feet 
twitch without reaching one’s brain. He was 
always urging her to ^^join in,” but she could 
only shake her head. Impossible as it seemed, 
she had never heard them. 

Suddenly he had an inspiration : ^‘But 
you’re bound to know, ^Hold Me Tight, O 
Honey Boy, Hold Me Tight.’ When I left, ev- 
erybody in the best houses and every kid on 
the streets of Kan — wait, my tongue slipped 
— in San Francisco was warbling it.” But the 
tremendous success even of ^^Hold Me Tight” 
had not caused a ripple on the placid waters 
of Lagville’s musical current and a deep sweet 
silence fell upon them broken only by the fit- 
ful whispering of the chords as Lucia fingered 
the strings ever so lightly — those same chords 
which could do duty for ten thousand songs. 

Somehow the guitar seemed the voice of the 
moonlight, while the moonlight became the 
visible image of Lucia’s beautiful youth. The 
world was bathed in a silver glory not because 
a dead world swung high in the sky but be- 
cause a young girl sat on the steps, music slip* 
ping from under her finger tips. John felt 
words forced from his husky throat: 

^‘Lucia, do you really love that Eugene 
Ware?” But he would have withheld the 
question could he have known how the sound 
of the words would start his heart to violent 
throbbing. 

Her hand fell across the strings and lay very 


94 


The Picture on the Wall 


still while a minor vibration whispered plain- 
tively under its weight. Her face lost much 
of its light although the moonlight was full 
upon her hair. A cloud had passed over her 
spirit. At last she said, “I think so.^^ 

“Why?’’ he inquired somewhat breathlessly. 

She shook her head. 

“He doesn’t like the things you like,” John 
persisted. “He’ll never be interested in what 
interests you. I’ve been giving him a close 
study, of course in a perfectly proper way and 
I think I could get my grades on figuring out 
his sum-total. I wouldn’t say a word if I 
thought you knew your own mind. I hate to 
see you taking such awful chances. I can’t 
find anything in Eugene Ware but drygoods. 
He thinks drygoods and he is drygoods. Of 
course he makes a living that way, a good one, 
but what’s the use of his living? I mean, if 
you don’t really love him. Lucia, should you 
ever change your mind about that — that young 
man, don’t keep it to yourself till it’s too late.” 

Such a long silence succeeded these impet- 
uous words, that he grew cold. “You’re 
angry with me,” he lamented, “and no wonder. 
But I couldn’t help saying it. I had the feel- 
ing that it ought to be said, that nobody else 
would do it, and that if I lost your confidence 
it couldn’t be helped — I’m not important any- 
way. But you are all there is ; that’s the way 
I feel about you, Lucia; if you can get my 
meaning — ^you’re all there is. And there’s 
nothing in the world I’d put up a more desper- 
ate fight over than your happiness. It’s just 
as I said — to me there isn’t anything else in 
the world.” 

Then she turned to look into his pleading 
face and he saw that she was not angry. Pres- 
ently she began speaking in a soft, hesitating 


The Picture on the Wall 


95 


voice utterly unlike her usual crispness of ut- 
terance, sweet and deeper with magic music 
than the strains from the guitar which filled in 
her brief pauses. ‘‘I think I do — It never oc- 
curred to me that I really didn^t until you ask- 
ed the question ; a little while ago. It wouldn’t 
have seemed that I ought to ask myself after 
giving my promise. The time for questions 
was then — But I think I do. It might be be- 
cause — because there wasn’t any one else. 
There are so few people in Lagville — hardly 
any young men; they go to the city before 
they’re grown and of course Eugene is above 
all those stranded here. That’s how they seem 
to me; stranded. But Eugene is energetic, 
and he has made it pay to live in the village. 
He has enterprise and — ^you know he is con- 
sidered very successful. And I haven’t had 
any one here at home to compare him with — 
until you came.” 

John groaned. “I wish you had a standard 
worthy of you to compare him with so you 
could see just how high he measures.” 

“Dear brother, you are so wonderful to me. 
When I consider the terrible disadvantages 
you’ve labored under all your life long — how 
you’ve struggled for refinement — it must have 
been the instinct of race drawing you up — the 
Warring blood — and how you’ve kept yourself 
fine and honorable in all sorts of surroundings 
— and since you’ve come here, your genius of 
fitting into our kind of life — and fitting into 
our hearts, filling the empty places that were 
always there before you came — When I con- 
sider all this, I tell myself I can’t expect to 
meet any one your equal. You are going to 
be a brilliant man, a man of wide affairs, the 
man father has yearned for at the head of his 
business. I can’t expect Eugene to be like 


96 


The Picture on the Wall 


that — he hasn’t your quickness and imagina- 
tion. And besides, you’re the handsomest boy 
I ever saw and the sweetest to all sorts of peo- 
ple. I’d have fallen in love with you just from 
the way you’ve brightened up poor Virgie; 
and put heart into our minister; and made a 
new man of father; and shown me what it 
means to be alive in this beautiful world. And 
I know it isn’t fair to Eugene to compare him 
to you, for you’re like nobody else in the world. 
So I mustn’t let myself get dissatisfied. My 
word is given and you must help me to be- 
lieve that it cannot be broken. I must be- 
lieve that all is for the best.” 

Her words had sunk so deep in his heart that 
they had carried all power of speech below the 
surface. Presently he rallied with, ‘^Let’s hope 
so. That’s the sort of cold comfort I try to 
give myself when I think of my own engage- 
ment.” 

‘‘Oh!” She gave a sharp exclamation and 
dropped the guitar. “Oh!” she gasped again, 
“I’m afraid it’s broken.” 

“No — just one of the heart-strings.” He re- 
placed it gently upon her knees. 

Her head was turned aside so all he could 
catch was the silver sheen on the glowing hair. 
“But what did you mean?” she faltered. 

“There’s a girl up the river I think a good 
deal of, and she likes me. Her father’s a pret- 
ty hard case, up to any kind of rascality as a 
side-line but his main business is fishing. 
However, Bettie’s an awfully nice girl and 
pretty, too. Yes, prettier than just pretty. I 
wish you could see her running along the riv- 
er-beach bare-headed and barefooted — that’s 
poetry, Lucia. Lots of people think they don’t 
like poetry but that means only that they 
don’t care to read it. When you can look at 


The Picture on the Wall 


97 


it, why, it^s different. A fellow may not be 
a Shakespeare but he couldn^t help feeling an 
ode or a lyric of some sort on seeing Bettie 
wading in after the boat with the water glis- 
tening on her.^’ 

Lucie protested vehemently, ‘‘But you could 
never marry a girl of that sort. She wouldn’t 
know how to adapt herself. And a father such 
as you describe! Oh, John, surely, surely you 
are not bound to her?” 

“We are not precisely engaged unless a let- 
ter I left with her does the work. But we’ve 
been chums for years. Her mother was my — 
I mean she was always good to me. She’s the 
only girl I ever kissed when I said good-by — 
Well, of course she isn’t in your class, hut it’s 
not fair to compare her to you. I don’t mind 
saying I’ve never seen a girl, and never ex- 
pect to see one, who wouldn’t go into eclipse 
every time you smiled. I’ll admit right now 
that my wife can never be the woman my sis- 
ter is.” 

She clasped his hand. “But I don’t want 
to think of your having a wife at all,” with a 
sigh. “Why not he satisfied just as you are? 
That’s the way I’ll always like you best.” She 
rose with sudden energy. “It’s getting late. 
I’m going to tell you good-by.” Before he 
could rise she stooped over him, resting one 
hand upon his shoulder. “I want you to break 
your record, John,” she said with a sudden 
flashing, teasing smile. “Bettie mustn’t con- 
tinue to be the only girl you ever kissed when 
you said good-by.” 

John rose with a laugh and patted her hand. 
“If I never marry, may I come to live with you 
and Eugene?” he asked lightly. 

She did not respond to his laugh for it 
lacked contagious quality, and they parted 
rather awkwardly without the good-by kiss. 


CHAPTER XV 

the: broken ENGAGEMENT 

A few days later, after intense hours devot- 
ed to his problem, John sought the Ware Dry- 
goods Emporium and invited the proprietor 
to a corner behind a high rampart of shoe- 
boxes where confidences were possible. 

Eugene Ware was six or seven years his 
senior, a good-looking, . dry man, immensely ab- 
sorbed in business — without curiosity. He had 
visited John and been visited by him and it 
was not in nature for him to catch sight of 
the other without feeling the burden of the 
hours thus dragged through the dust of labored 
small-talk. Eugene could not sustain his end 
of any conversation not dealing with the buy- 
ing, selling or handling of goods. Without 
general information and utterly lacking in- 
terest in such ideas as had been crammed into 
his head at high school, he looked upon a ready 
talker as an inferior, and held ideals in sus- 
picion. To drive a bargain he was prodigal 
with words, but had not one with which to 
sweeten life, and he spent much of the time 
while calling upon Lucia in dark, dense si- 
lence shot through occasionally by monosyl- 
labic responses to the vivacious girl of his 
choice. Lucia sometimes comforted herself 
with the reflection that after they were mar- 
ried it would not be necessary to try to think of 
something to say; life would be freer without 
the nightmare-heaviness of his visitations. 

^‘Look here, Eugene, I guess iPs a little out 
of order, but considering my connection with 

98 


The Picture on the Wall 99 

the family, I hope you’ll take no exception to 
a few candid remarks. 

^Wes, yes,” responded Eugene who hated any- 
thing out of order and instantly became on 
guard when anybody else spoke of candor. 

“Has it occurred to you that Lucia is pretty 
young to get married? Strikes me a girl 
ought to see more of the world first, to find 
out what sort of people are in it. Of course 
you and I are all right — but there are others. 
I don’t like the thought of her marrying so 
early and you might as well know how I feel 
about it.” 

“Yes, yes,” Eugene responded looking slight- 
ly flabbier than usual. He could say ‘‘Yes, yes” 
in a dozen different ways, all of them objection- 
able to J ohn, and no way was more nerve-rack- 
ing than when he meant, “No, no.” 

“Of course I don’t blame you for thinking 
otherwise ; that’s your point of view. But what 
I have to consider is not you but Lucia. Per- 
haps you think that, though I am her brother, 
I haven’t been long on the job. True I haven’t 
seen much of her, but I’ve seen a great deal of 
the world. I know men; and I know when 
they’re like you, so much older than the girls 
they want to marry, there’s mighty little 
chance of happiness for either when the man 
isn’t willing to yield one inch to the girl’s 
wishes — or, if you want to call it so, whims. 
I don’t know but you and Lucia might do well 
enough if you’d consider her likes and dis- 
likes, but as long as you hold to a straight line 
that isn’t her line and can’t be induced across 
it, seems to me the prospect is pretty dark.” 

“For instance,” Eugene said, toying with the 
upper boxes, “what are you thinking of as my 
‘line’ ? I didn’t know I had one. It’s a man’s 
place to run the business, and the woman’s 


t 


100 The Picture on the Wall 

place to run the home — if you call that a ^line.’ 
Lucia isn’t ten years younger than myself, and 
if you’ll permit a few candid remarks of my 
own, you’re talking nonsense. Whatever Lucia 
wants I want. Nobody was ever more yield- 
ing than I am. I agree to everything.” Sud- 
denly he lost his flabby look and grew red. 
^^If you weren’t her brother I should call this 
intolerable.” 

^‘Naturally I didn’t come here to quarrel, but 
I did come to let you know my opinion. Eight 
or nine years make a great difference, when 
the man won’t accommodate himself to the 
girl’s prejudices. Now for an instance, since 
you ask for one: you are working to drive 
Brother Tredmill out of town. I don’t care 
what your attitude toward religion is, but my 
sister is fond of her church. You are always 
opposing her. It may seem a little thing; but 
if you can’t yield to Lucia in little things, then 
the difference between your ages is too big a 
thing to be smoothed away.” 

^Wou said you didn’t come here to quarrel 
with me. Then looks are deceiving. Tredmill 
is a dead one. I won’t say he hasn’t acted 
from good motives, but he has meddled in the 
affairs of Lagville and has openly spoken of 
some things that don’t sound well. We men 
propose to lead our own lives in our own way 
and it’s none of Tredmill’s business how we 
lead them. You are hardly in a position to 
talk to me about religious matters. From 
what I’ve heard you got the gang to church by 
pitching horseshoes with the boys!” 

^^I’m not talking about religious matters. 
I’m discussing your warfare on Lucia’s min- 
ister. That’s my only point. Look here, old 
fellow,” suddenly his tone altered to frank en- 
treaty, “let up on Brother Tredmill. Upon my 


The Picture on the Wall 


101 


word he means well, as you admit ; and 
it’s worrying Lucia dreadfully to know that 
if he loses his place you’ll be largely responsi- 
ble.” 

‘‘Yes, yes,” Eugene applied the brakes on 
his growing resentment, for it was with him 
a maxim that ill-humor is bad for business. 
“Well, well!” But though his manner grew 
docile, he had really hardened as the other 
softened. “Am I to understand,” he asked 
dryly, “that you represent your sister in this 
curious interview? Has she sent me her or- 
ders that I am to embrace her preacher?” 

John turned from him without a word. He 
was too angry to treat himself to the luxury of 
self-expression. 

His visible emotion amused the merchant. 
“Do wait one moment,” Eugene called. “I 
can talk over the telephone without being over- 
heard. I’ll get your sister.” 

John waited with his back turned. He 
was deeply annoyed by the course matters had 
taken, but could not bring himself to attempt 
further conciliation. 

. .Is that you, Lucia? I have just had 
a remarkable conversation with your brother. 
Did you know he was coming to call on me at 
the store?” 

“No,” came Lucia’s response, faint, agitated. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, he 
thinks the difference in our ages and tastes is 
so great that it would be a mistake for us to 
marry. I am wondering if you could possibly 
agree with him?” 

John wheeled about, throwing up a hand in 
protest. “Wait, Eugene, let us talk this thing 
over fairly and soberly.” 

Paying no heed to the expostulation, Eugene 
pressed the receiver to his ear. J ohn watched 


102 


The Picture on the Wall 


his face pass from a flaming red to a milky 
pallor. 

Lucia answered, perfectly agree with my 
brother. It was a mistake, Eugene; the only 
good thing about it is that we have found out 
in time. ... I am so sorry — ’’ 

John could hear every word distinctly before 
the receiver fell. 

Without glancing at John who remained 
with hand uplifted as if deprived of the power 
of motion, Eugene fumbled for the receiver, 
restored it to the fork and went to wait upon a 
customer, still pale, but otherwise his phleg- 
matic self. 


CHAPTER XVI 

BURIED TREASURE 

John, deeply agitated, went for a long walk 
in the country hoping the situation would 
clear up for him with quiet meditation; but 
he could not compose his mind to quietness. 
On reaching the deserted cattle-shed where he 
had changed clothes on first coming to Lag- 
ville — he had taken that direction unconscious- 
ly — confusion deepened while uneasiness over 
what ought to be done caused a violent throb- 
bing of his head. Fate seemed to have led 
him back to the days of Blearstead and Bettie 
Hode as if to give warning that from his past 
there was no escape. 

Other lonely roads led from the river 
through dense woodlands and upspringing 
meadows where the tender wheat showed its 
faithful pledge of living green, but they 
brought no counsel. It was almost dusk when 
he reached home. Lucia who had been watch- 
ing for him was in the reception hall as he 
came through the door. 

“Brother!” She threw her arms about his 
neck and pressed her cheek against his coat- 
sleeve. He stood very still, not even stroking 
her hair. “Brother!” her voice quivered with 
emotion, “I am so glad, so glad, so glad!” 
He thought he knew what she meant, yet was 
afraid to ask. 

She gave him instant reassurance. “It was 
always a mistake. But I shouldn’t have 
known it until too late if you hadn’t come. 
John, I never loved him. I never, never loved 

103 


104 


The Picture on the Wall 


him. I cannot imagine now how I ever could 
have imagined even for an hour that I did. 
The part of me that admired his success, his 
determination — the part of me that found him 
agreeable and pleasant to look at and com- 
forting to have near seems to have been cut 
away. Isn’t it wonderful! As if I’d been 
through an operation. And was healed. But 
if you hadn’t come, I’d still be in darkness. 
I’d have gone on in my darkness. We’d have 
married. Then when you came, as of course 
finally you must have come, I’d have waked* 
up. How dreadful not to have known the 
truth until too late!” 

She had grown so excited that he tried to 
sooth her with commonplace words, but she 
put them aside. . “I can’t understand,” she 
rushed on; “it’s from being with you that 
I’ve realized what it would mean all my life 
to — to be with /iim.” She began to sob, but he 
knew they were tears of happiness. 

“It’s all over now,” she gasped between long 
breaths, “and spring is here. That’s the way 
I think about it; spring is here — and you. 
Today has been so beautiful — such wonder- 
ful colors, and odors of earth and grass, and 
the shadows of first-leaves fiickering so faint- 
ly on the ground, to and fro. You’ll think me 
a foolish girl who doesn’t know her mind, but 
this is the way I think of it — the engagement 
is ended and spring is here. There’ll never be 
such a wonderful spring as this spring. I owe 
it to you, you wonderful handsome deliverer !” 

She gazed up at him through shining eyes. 
“Yes, and I can see how glad you are too, Mr. 
John Warring, though you think it for my 
good and for your own dignity to appear neu- 
tral! It’s like a man not to say a word to 
show how happy he is. Yes, you are happy; 


The Picture on the Wall 


105 


you can’t hide it! But father mustn’t know, 
not just yet.” 

She went on breathlessly to explain. A let- 
ter had come evidently containing important 
news; for her father, visibly moved and with- 
out revealing its nature, had declared that it 
would be necessary for him to absent himself 
from home for at least a week. Since he had 
not left town for a year and, before J ohn’s com- 
ing, had not been considered strong enough to 
leave the house, the announcement that he 
meant to take the midnight train for Chicago 
had met with serious remonstrance. Because 
his vitality had been almost miraculously re- 
stored there was no question of his fitness for 
travel; but the business letter had so mani- 
festly proved disturbing that John concurred 
in Lucia’s opinion; no other trouble should 
be heaped upon his mind — and it was certain 
that he would regard the broken engagement 
as a serious trouble. 

After the evening meal which in Lagville 
was invariably ‘^supper,” Mr. Warring invit- 
ed John to a conference in the room where so 
many of his days had been spent in bed. The 
elderly gentleman was plainly nervous and 
decidedly sketchy in what he sought to com- 
municate. His purpose seemed rather to con- 
vey ‘impressions than facts. Through every- 
thing shone love and pride in his ‘‘son” but 
with this was mingled something dark as of 
a dread imperfectly realized. His journey was 
necessary in order to put to rights some of 
his lumberyard affairs which he had supposed 
in perfect condition. 

“I want your help, my boy, and I’m trust- 
ing you to give it without asking questions. 
There are some things I cannot understand, yet, 
if I tried to explain, my words might cause 


106 


The Picture on the Wall 


you to misunderstand. Because I doubt if af- 
fairs are always dark when they look dark. 
Perhaps the difficulty is in our eyes, eh? If 
we can’t see clearly, is it the other fellow’s 
fault if w^e think his nose crooked?” 

He rubbed his shock of gray hair and his 
lips moved without speech. Then — ‘^It’s hard 
to get at what I want to tell you. Yet in jus- 
tice to others you must take it without details. 
Maybe I’ll find it easier to show you — ” 

He went to a landscape painting hanging 
opposite the light, felt behind the canvas and 
produced a tiny key. Then he crossed the 
floor to an oldfashioned leather trunk which 
stood directly opposite the bed. The key was 
not meant for the trunk for it was not only 
unfastened, but stood ajar from some defect 
in the lid-hinges, showing a crevice of at least 
an inch between its iron-rimmed jaws. 

‘^This trunk,” he said, “is supposed to con- 
tain nothing but old letters and souvenirs of 
my happy married life. Photographs and love- 
tokens. Look out in the hall, John, and find 
if Simmons is anywhere about.” 

John found the hall deserted and came back 
to look into the trunk which, without its tray, 
showed a wild confusion of yellowed envelopes, 
pale-inked notes, fading photographs, bits of 
ribbon and other driftage of past years. 

“No doubt this appears to you in utter con- 
fusion,” the old man smiled, “but I know ex- 
actly what letters and pictures should be on 
top. I can see that the contents of this trunk 
have not been disturbed since I last opened it.” 

“But who should be prowling into your 
trunk?” John demanded indignantly. 

“You never can tell. Now, my boy, dig down 
through all that mass to the far comer on your 
right. Feel anything?” 


The Picture on the Wall 


107 


a small metalic box.” 

Mr. Warring^ sighed his relief. it out. 

You’ll not find it heavy. Although,” he added 
anxiously, ‘‘it shouldn’t he altogether light, I 
hope it doesn’t seem empty to you.” 

“I think there is something in it. Of course 
the box alone has a certain weight.” He drew 
to the light a flat oblong shiny-black box. The 
other tested it in his careful hands and ban- 
ished half-formed fears. 

Mr. Warring snatched up a sofa-cushion and 
shook the cover empty. “Put the box in this 
cover ; I don’t want any one to see what it is.” 

John, obeying, was startled by sudden dark- 
ness. “It’s all right,” the old man whispered. 
“I’ve switched off the light to make sure no 
one is in Cousin Glaxton’s room. There’s no 
light shining under his door.” 

“You thought Simmons might be spying in 
there?” 

“One never knows — But it’s all right. And 
it’s good and dark outdoors. We might as 
well take the box now. We’re going to hide it, 
son, till I get back from the timber-lands. I 
know of a splendid place — I’ve thought it all 
out, lying in my bed so long — under the sum- 
merhouse. I have the spade under the back* 
porch. I wouldn’t dare go away leaving the 
box in the trunk. Put your ear closer: it’s 
filled with banknotes.” 

“But surely it ought to be deposited in the 
bank.” 

“No. There it would get out of my hands. 
You see Cousin Glaxton manages my account. 
I can’t explain. I know I have this much mon- 
ey and I can’t be absolutely certain about the 
rest. I shall hold on to this, for you and 
Lucia.” 

John exclaimed impetuously, “You distrust 


108 


The Picture on the Wall 


that man Glaxton. Why don’t you get rid of 
him? Revoke his power of attorney. Now 
that I’ve come home — ” 

The other grasped his arm in the darkness. 
^^Hush, boy, not so loud. We must not hurry 
things. Oh, we have to be so cautious, so easy, 
so slow, and all the time seem so unsuspect- 
ing! If he gets a hint that we doubt him, if 
he finds one inkling that we suspect — he could 
ruin us all. Of course I mean if he wanted 
to; if he’s bad at heart. But of course we 
don’t doubt him; not really, you know. He 
has always been so helpful, and knows how to 
quiet my heart when all the doctors are use- 
less. But we have this box. Whatever comes, 
we have this box. And besides, of course ev- 
erything is all right. Hush! Your Cousin 
Glaxton will be back in the morning. That’s 
why I’m going tonight. He wouldn’t let me go 
if he were here. I’m not telling you my des- 
tination nor just exactly why I’m going. 
That’ll make it easier for you to deal with 
him. You’ll simply be at liberty to tell him all 
you know which is next to nothing — except 
about this box.” 

‘Wou shan’t fear that lawyer while I’m 
here,” John persisted. ‘^It’s none of his busi- 
ness where you go and I’d like to see him 
try to stop you.” 

‘Wou don’t understand. But you will when 
you meet him. And he is so helpful and ener- 
getic, and kind.” 

“Would a good man have lied to the minister 
to drive him from your house?” 

“Don’t let’s talk about him, son. Your 
Cousin Glaxton isn’t a man to be explained. 
I gave that up long ago.” He softly 
opened the halldoor, then tiptoed back 
to whisper, “A good while after your 


The Picture on the Wall 


109 


cousin began taking over the management of 
my business I began to draw in certain funds 
such as he knew nothing about. He’s an in- 
credibly lynx-eyed gentleman but he can’t see 
everything, that’s beyond mortal power. I 
converted all my outside interests to bank- 
notes. Of course I couldn’t hide my farms and 
forest lands and I seldom ask questions be- 
cause your Cousin Glaxton abhors questions. 
And it would never do to antagonize him. 
Nobody else can quiet my heart. Bear that in 
mind while I’m away. He’s all right. I’m 
sure he’s all right. If he isn’t we’re ruined. 
If you’re ever tempted to antagonize him, re- 
member that he has the power. That’s what 
he stands for in this house: power. Power 
over all my properties, but if everything else 
should be swept away, here’s fifty thousand 
dollars in this box for you and Lucia. It 
would be a start. It would be something. 
Come !” 

He slipped to the hall door. ‘^The coast is 
clear. Should we meet any one, keep the box 
well under your coat.” 

Through the dim hall and down the stairs 
John followed, meeting no one. The voices of 
Lucia, Virgie and Mrs. Abbottsfield reached 
them from the front room, but they escaped 
out the back door undetected. From under the 
porch Mr. Warring secured the spade and^ 
waved toward the summerhouse without a' 
word. There was no moon but the stars were 
bright and an arc-light sent from the street a 
shaft of white radiance across rosebushes and 
gravel walks, missing the summerhouse by only 
a few feet. However, once within the latticed 
enclosure the two men were safe from general 
observation. 

Instead of relaxing his caution Mr. Warring 


no 


The Picture on the Wall 


grew even more secretive in manner. Never 
saying a word he crept to a distant comer and 
by guiding John’s hand with his own showed 
him a loose plank in the floor. They drew 
it np and the young man dug the hole while 
the other carried away the loose dirt in a bas- 
ket which had been hidden in the shmbbery 
for that purpose. Dense bushes crowded up 
from a garden walk to the back of the rustic 
structure, a thicket which in the early weeks 
of May formed an unbroken wall of white blos- 
soms. 

While John dug he followed with strained 
hearing every subdued sound of the old man’s 
progress to and fro and once his nerves quiver- 
ed as from an electric shock on hearing some- 
thing he feared could not have been the other’s 
footstep. It came from the thicket and he 
darted around the summerhouse much to the 
confusion of his ‘Tather” who had not caught 
the alarm. 

‘‘Somebody’s spying upon us,” John whis- 
pered with conviction. He plunged into the 
thicket but it was darkened by the house and 
no sign was discovered of a spy. • 

“You must have been mistaken,” the other 
urged. “Trust me to hear anybody trying to 
find my precious box. There’s no other spot so 
good for its hiding-place.” 

John admitted, “My nerves are a little on 
edge.” After the box was safely stowed away 
and all traces of their labor removed, they re- 
turned to the house as silently as they had 
left it. 

As they stepped upon the back porch, Sim- 
mons came out from the corridor. “What do 
you want?” Mr. Warring demanded with un- 
wonted brusqueness. 


The Picture on the Wall 


111 


^^Excuse me, sir, but the motor-bus has come 
to take you to the station.” 

^^Ah, thank you.” He hurried through the 
house, calling good-bys to everyone. The wo- 
men ran out from the parlor and there ensued 
the confusion incident to the departure of one 
unused to travel. 

“But whereas my son?” called Mr. Warring, 
half-way down the front walk. “IVe got to 
give him a hug.” 

“I’ll give it to him for you,” Lucia promised 
with a swift uprushing of the spirits. To Vir- 
gie she whispered, “If you only knew what 
I know!” She felt the spring scattering blos- 
soms in its warm wind over her heart. 

While his “father” had hurried after his suit- 
case, John had stopped in the back corridor, 
then turned and tiptoed to the door. Sim- 
mons had pulled from under the porch-floor 
the spade where Mr. Warring had hastily flung 
it, and was feeling the stained edge with deft 
sensitive fingers. It was this discovery that 
caused the young man almost to miss telling 
the traveler good-by. However, he reached the 
car before it left the gate and received from 
Mr. Warring not only a hug but a hearty kiss 
which he accepted with his bright affectionate 
smile. 

John had finished burying the box in its 
owner’s favorite hiding-place simply to calm 
his mind, not at all convinced that he had 
been startled by a false alarm. He believed 
some one in the thicket had spied upon them, 
and the discovery of Simmons thoughtfully ex- 
amining the spade confirmed his instinctive 
surmise that Glaxton’s confidential servant 
was the spy. It would be necessary to hide 
the box in another place but in the meantime 
something else was even more essential; and 


112 


The Picture on the Wall 


after bidding the family good-night he called 
Simmons for a private word in the garden. 

The man, always polite and soft of voice, 
looked down from his superior height with a 
certain air of apology in having the other at a 
disadvantage. 

John began abruptly: “You leave this place 
at once. Mr. Glaxton brought you here, not 
because the family needed your services. 
However, I am going to pay you for your 
time.’^ 

Simmons smiled and responded with unruf- 
fled countenance, “Oh, I’m quite sure you 
don’t understand, Mr. John. You see, Mr. 
Glaxton wouldn’t like it at all, not finding me 
when he comes back. 

“It isn’t a matter for discussion,” John re- 
marked. “You are dismissed, and it merely 
remains for you to go.” 

“But I couldn’t do it, Mr. John. In the 
morning when Mr. Glaxton comes, whatever 
he decides about it will be perfectly all right.” 

“But you are going now.” 

“I couldn’t think of it, really.” 

“This moment.” 

“Mr. Glaxton told me — ” 

“But you have heard what I’ve told you. I 
represent Mr. Warring while he is from home.” 

“Mr. Glaxton would be very angry. I’m aw- 
fully sorry for you to feel this way about me.” 

“I’m afraid you’re going to feel much worse ; 
but I hate to use physical means of persua- 
sion.” 

“Mr. John, it would be very unbecoming 
in me to strike you which I would never do 
unless you jumped on me. Better leave me 
alone, for I’ve got to think of Mr. Glaxton. I 
take my orders from him and he told me to 
stay.” 


The Picture on the Wall 


113 


“Now’s the time,” remarked John, “for 
you to think less of Mr. Glaxton than of your- 
self. Right now is when, as you express it, I 
jump on you.” 

He darted forward and the man was un- 
pleasantly shocked out of his supercilious at- 
titude. His advantage of weight and height 
was more than counterbalanced by the young- 
er man’s swiftness and agility while the lat- 
ter’s expert knowledge of athletics gained from 
Cleek proved determining factors. There were 
several rushes and counter charges, then all 
was over; Simmons lay flat upon his back 
while John’s knees bored painfully into his 
ribs. 

“I’ll go,” Simmons gasped. 

John rose, his breath even. “Let’s see you. 
You may get your things.” 

Simmons rose slowly. “Mr. Glaxton will 
see about this,” he muttered. 

“Simmons, don’t you know when you’re 
whipped? Must I do it again?” 

Simmons went away, cursing futilely un- 
der his breath. Determined not to be again 
spied upon, John made a thorough search of 
the garden before digging up the box, then 
doubled every precaution before burying it in 
a spot much less likely of detection than a 
corner of the summerhouse. 

It was one in the morning when he started 
for the house, his mind at ease. He had al- 
most reached the porch steps when loud 
screams from upstairs caused him to drop the 
spade in dismay. A large flgure which in the 
semi-darkness assumed huge proportions burst 
through the doorway and came leaping across 
the back porch straight toward the young 
man. 


114 


The Picture on the Wall 


“Get out of my way/’ came a hoarse under- 
tone as John snatched desperately at the in- 
truder’s arm. “Ho! So it’s you, huh?” The 
man — ^it was Blearstead — stopped short and 
gave a hoarse chuckle. “I hope you’ve had a 
companion in your midnight stroll. He’d come 
in handy, in case you wanted to prove an 
alibi.” 

John dropped his arm. His heart was like 
a lump of ice in his bosom. “What have you 
done? You mustn’t come here again. If you 
do I’ll — I’ll give you up to the police, yes, if 
I have to give myself up at the same time.” 

Again came the terrified scream from the 
upper floor. 

“I haven’t hurt anybody,” Blearstead grin- 
ned, and John could see his nose twisting from 
side to side in the old nerve-racking way. 
“That old woman’s scared silly, that’s all. But 
don’t you get it into your head, dear newy, 
that I’m not coming again. For coming again 
I am, just as soon as this blows over. Good- 
night, newy, and for a little while, good-by.” 


CHAPTER XVII 

THE COMING OP GLAXTON 

A few moments — long enough for Blearstead 
to leap the fence and disappear down the alley 
— John stood stunned. Then he rushed into 
the house to find Lucia hysterical over the 
burglar whose face she had caught refiected in 
her mirror. Virgie, too, had seen him, but had 
not cried out. 

<^Virgie was so brave,’’ Lucia gasped. ^^She 
actually ran after him — yes, tried to stop him.” 

Mrs. Abbottsfield amended her phrase. 
^^Brave? No, reckless; wilfully reckless. She 
was wickedly reckless !” Her voice rose 
shrilly. All of them were in their nightrobes 
and it seemed that with her conventional 
clothes she had laid aside her careful gentility. 
Terror rendered her vicious. 

“Virgie,” she cried, having no other way to 
vent her emotions roused by the midnight in- 
truder, “you are so 

In fact, her daughter looked less pleasing 
than by day ; and there was a certain inexpli- 
cable solemnity of countenance less natural 
than the mother’s agitation. Of course one in- 
stinctively looks solemn over a burglar, but 
the ghostly figure seemed concerned about 
something else. 

Virgie spoke to John, not with the freedom 
that usually characterized their intercourse, 
but with an inscrutable withholding of com- 
radeship, “You hadn’t gone to bed.” 

The dry words were not spoken as a question, 
yet seemed to call for some sort of explanation 

115 


116 


The Picture on the Wall 


and he had none to offer. He hoped the point 
would be overlooked. 

However, there was something much more 
dangerous to be faced. The robbery, when 
published, would bring detectives and other of- 
ficers of the law, and search would be renewed 
for the young man who had been seen to leave 
the train at the Lagville station on the day of 
John^s arrival. 

Though profoundly disturbed, John was 
struck by the immense advantage to which Lu- 
cm appeared. Too highly wrought up to think 
of her disheveled state, her charms were re- 
vealed in all the innocence of a little child. 
His breath was caught in his throat. Bettie 
running barefooted on the river sands faded so 
completely from memory’s wall that he could- 
n’t even see the spot where the picture had 
hung. 

The vision of Lucia’s loveliness was pro- 
longed in the search through the house for 
missing objects. Blearstead had perhaps 
slipped through the back door while the box 
was being buried under the summerhouse — 
probably it was he, not Simmons, who had 
made the noise in the shrubbery. If so, doubly 
important had been the second hiding of the 
money-box. When an inventory had been 
made of missing valuables it was found that 
all the jewelry — a pearl necklace and the dia- 
monds — had been stolen. 

John addressed the agitated ladies in his 
most persuasive manner. He knew, he told 
them, an expert detective — his life of hardships 
had cast him among many kinds of people — a 
detective who would undertake to recover the 
jewelry provided the theft were kept secret; 
thus he always worked to best advantage. As 
sure as the alarm was given, the robber or rob- 


The Picture on the Wall 


117 


bers would dispose of the gems — ^possibly fling 
them into the river. 

“Don’t say a word about it to any one. I 
want to be here in the morning when Mr. 
Glaxton comes; I want to see him. But as 
soon as that’s over, I’ll go after my man. If 
Glaxton finds out about it, he’ll interfere. I 
give you my word that if anybody can get back 
your things my man can.” 

This sounded reasonable, and John was so 
earnest in asking them to promise secrecy that 
they agreed amidst sighs and tears. But af- 
ter that, they remained together for some time 
overwhelmed by the loss of the wonderful neck- 
lace and the diamond rings. John who felt 
confident of his ability to make quick restora- 
tion tried his best to sooth their agitation and 
bring a smile to Lucia’s lips, and it was not 
until they separated that he became definitely 
aware of Virgie’s cool aloofness — Virgie who 
had not been frightened by the night’s expe- 
rience and who had never before failed to re- 
spond to his kindliness. 

Perhaps after all she had not been as una- 
fraid as her mother had supposed. If the 
shock had broken Mrs. Abbottsfield’s veneer to 
reveal an under-skin of the common man, 
might it not have imparted to Virgie’s manner 
a vague trace of hostility? He dismissed the 
point as exaggerated by his perilous situation 
and presently forgot even Blearstead. The im- 
age of Lucia like the shining of a transfigured 
face blotted out dark thoughts and in the morn- 
ing as he lay very still in bed, as if fearful of 
wrecking a fairy dream, these words slipped 
from tenderly smiling lips: “What a sister!” 

The news failed to arouse his night’s dim 
uneasiness when it was announced that Virgie 
had a headache and would not come down to 


118 


The Picture on the Wall 


breakfast. Lucia was there in that intimacy 
of the family life that gives dearness to the cas- 
ual word, the unimportant gesture, and Mrs. 
Abbottsfield was herself again, except for some 
constraint at the remembrance that she had 
been rather on exhibition the previous night. 
This sensitiveness John soothed by dragging 
in Glaxton for their morning’s theme. 

“Would it be asking too much to let me face 
him alone?” he smiled. “I want to get a full- 
length impression without the different shad- 
ings of other people’s likes or dislikes. 

“You can always have him alone, and wel- 
come,” cried Lucia, laughing. “I give you my 
share in him. Come on. Aunt Hildegarde, be 
generous !” 

“Lucia!” murmured the other, putting up 
her noseglasses. 

Lucia laughed again. “Don’t you say ^the 
best families to me,’ Aunt Hildegarde, after 
last night 1” 

When the motor-bus chugged up to the gate, 
John, watching alone from the parlor, was 
scarcely surprised to see Simmons alight with 
his master. Of course he had met the train to 
make bitter complaint of his ejection. 

Simmons took possession of the newcomer’s 
suitcase, but John smiled grimly on finding 
that he had no intention of advancing with it 
into the yard. Glaxton waved him forward, 
but the man-servant shook his head. He would 
wait outside the gate until his enemy was paci- 
fied. 

The lawyer lost no time in argument but 
came briskly up the walk while John from be- 
hind the curtain scrutinized him keenly. He 
was a short, dark man with black hair, heavy 
eyebrows, a square chin. At first glance one 
was impressed by the handsomeness of his reg- 


The Picture on the Wall 


119 


ular features; then came the deeper sense of 
darkness, not only of skin and hair but of spir- 
itual texture. John did not penetrate his 
mood. It seemed to lack responsiveness, but 
of that he was not sure. A smile might be lurk- 
ing behind the keen, deepset eyes or might be 
utterly lacking from their hidden depths. 

The next descriptive epithet that occurred 
to the observer after ^‘handsome’’ and “dark’’ 
was “unusual.” His air of distinction was not 
such as to warm admiration, but it must catch 
and hold the most careless eye. Swiftly fol- 
lowing up these characteristics came the man’s 
vitality which smote upon one’s perceptions as 
by a blow. He was alive throughout his stout- 
ly-built body and in every brain-cell. He 
breathed intensive energy, recalling Mr. War- 
ring’s term, “power.” Handsome — dark — un- 
usual — powerful; there you had Cousin Glax- 
ton. 

Before he had come halfway up the walk, 
John saw the Kev. Harry Tredmill push past 
Simmons who had the cool impudence to main- 
tain his position in front of the gate. Glaxton 
was aware that the minister was hastening 
after him, but made no sign either by slowing 
or quickening his pace. As he stepped upon 
the porch, Tredmill at the bottom of the steps 
protested : 

“I beg your pardon — 

Glaxton wheeled around. “Stop where you 
are,” he spoke in a low but cruelly cutting tone. 
“Really, sir, you should be more considerate of 
my feelings than to oblige me for a second time 
to order you off the place.” 

John appeared at the front door. “How are 
you. Brother Tredmill ?” he called, with aggres- 
sive friendliness. The thought that the lawyer 
might in some inexplicable manner be able to 


120 


The Picture on the Wall 


penetrate the secret of his past gave to the 
young man an attitude of sheer recklessness. 
“Come right in. You know you’re always as 
welcome in this house as I am myself.” 

Tredmill cast him an appreciative glance, 
then looked steadily at Glaxton whose dark- 
ness had increased tenfold, though there was 
no apparent change of countenance. “I wish 
to see Mr. Warring on important business.” 

“My father is not at home,” John interposed, 
“but Pm always glad to see you. My father 
has left town for some time.” 

“Then I’ll wait. No,” in answer to John’s 
insistence, “not now.” He turned toward the 
gate. 

John turned upon the lawyer. “And now, 
who are you f” he demanded shortly. 

For a moment the other gave him a piercing 
look that sought to take his measure. Then 
in full, musically modulated voice, “I am your 
cousin Edgar Glaxton.” He smiled darkly, 
proffering his hand. “I need not ask who you 
are. Of course I have heard the news; and 
the resemblance to your father is obvious. It 
cries aloud. Like father, like son. And how 
impetuous you are! Just as your father used 
to be. I know we shall be excellent friends. 
This is indeed a pleasure to welcome into our 
midst the son we have so long mourned as 
dead.” 

John let his hand be taken, but his set face 
did not relax. “It would be a far greater 
pleasure to me, Mr. Glaxton, if you had not be- 
gun our acquaintance by insulting one of my 
best friends.” 

“Oh — you mean the parson? As one new to 
our town, of course you don’t understand. He 
has been hunting out the evils in our commun- 
ity and preaching about them with the hope 


The Picture on the Wall 


121 


of making ns better. He drags? skeletons from 
closets in the name of religion. I am not op- 
posed to religion, indeed no. But we cannot 
tolerate a preacher who makes our religion un- 
pleasant to us. He has made himself obnox- 
ious to the better element, to your father in 
particular.*’ 

‘‘On the contrary, my father esteems him 
highly.” 

“I should of course be sorry to have misin- 
terpreted your father’s feelings. The fact is 
your father’s state of health, which varies in 
a way to puzzle all our doctors, determines 
his opinions for the time being. When he is at 
his worst, he dislikes what in better health he 
likes. But there are a few things he dislikes 
consistently, and I thought this Tredmill was 
one of them.” 

“You know my father is devoted to his 
church.” 

“I was not aware of it, I assure you. Come, 
come, John, it isn’t possible that a fine young 
full-blooded fellow like you clings to the old 
Sunday-school book classifications. You don’t 
believe that the worth-while folk are all in the 
church, and the bad, bad people are all out 
of it.” 

“That’s a very convenient classification in 
Lagville,” John said cheerfully. “And you 
know the old styles are coming back in fashion 
this year. Before I came here I didn’t care 
any more about religion than you do. I 
thought of the church as a sort of jail — a place 
to keep out of. But I’ve been trying to build 
me a shack of my own. It’s easy for others 
to see where my lines are crooked and my ma- 
terial shoddy, but the fault’s with the car- 
penter; the level and plumbline are all right. 
And it’s a good thing, I’ve been thinking, to 


122 


The Picture on the Wall 


have any sort of a roof when iPs raining.” 
He waved his arm. ^^Of course going to church 
is a novelty to me — I don’t know how it’ll 
wear, but for a recreation warranted not to 
leave a headache or a bad taste in the mouth, 
it carries the blue ribbon.” 

John turned from the silent figure to call to 
Simmons: ‘^I’ll let you come on in with that 
suitcase. And you can stay here as long as 
Mr. Glaxton stays.” 

Glaxton shot a glance toward his stalwart 
servant then at the slight figure of his ^^cous- 
in” and doubtless concluded that there was less 
to be hoped for from Simmons and more to be 
feared from John than appeared on the sur- 
face. 

In the front room their conversation was 
continued, though it occurred to neither to sit 
down. 

find changes,” Glaxton remarked, ‘^since 
my departure. Best of all,” he continued 
never indicating what emotion, if any, was at 
play beneath the dark surface, “is naturally 
your presence among us. It is wonderful. It 
is almost enough to make one believe in mira- 
cles. Cousin John Warring has his son again, 
dear Lucia her brother.” 

John added with an inscrutable smile, “And 
you, your cousin.” 

“Yes — thank you for saying that. And I 
find your father’s health quite restored. Sim- 
mons tells me the heart gives no more uneasi- 
ness. How delightful! However, this is not 
so miraculous; you were sufficient to effect the 
cure. With you here, he can never be ill 
again.” 

“I don’t believe he can,” John agreed. “I 
think Pm what the Indians call ‘good medi- 
cine’ — for him, I mean.” 


The Picture on the Wall 123 

see. For him; yes.” Glaxton shot him 
a lightning glance from under his heavy brows. 
He spoke calmly: “Simmons tells me Lucia’s 
engagement to Eugene Ware is broken off. 
This does not please me. How could it? 
There is not in the county half so good a match 
for her. Even before our young men were 
scattered there was practically nobody but 
Eugene in Lagville. You will not find such 
another. I fear this will mean a lonely isolat- 
ed life for your sister.” 

John was unable to still a twinge of con- 
science. The other’s words represented his ap- 
prehension on quitting the Ware Drygoods Em- 
porium after the fateful interview. He stared 
from the window frowning from the difficult 
thoughts that perplexed him whenever Lucia’s 
marriage was discussed as a possibility. It 
would have been better for her after-years, had 
he not interfered. 

“However,” Glaxton sighed, “they may recon- 
sider. Let us hope that they will reconsider.” 

“I shall hope nothing of the sort.” Sudden- 
ly John saw the whole matter in the gleam of 
the moonlight streaming over Lucia with her 
guitar. “The thing is settled for all time.” 

Glaxton started back theatrically. “What! 
you objected? You must have had powerful 
reasons to practically condemn your sister to 
a hermit’s life.” 

“She’ll not be lonesome if I can help it. 
We’ll be two hermits together.” 

“But when you go away — ” 

“I shall not go away.” 

Glaxton smiled. “Do not be too sure of 
that, my dear cousin. One never knows what 
may happen.” 

John darkened. “When it comes to the 
matter of Lucia’s happiness, it is infinitely 


124 


The Picture on the Wall 


more to me than it could be to you, so please 
let the subject pass. As to my ^powerful rea- 
sons’ against Eugene Ware, I cannot claim all 
the honor of breaking off the engagement, so 
we’ll not discuss that either.” 

“Quite right, cousin, quite right. I am a 
little discomfited to find that your father has 
gone on a journey because I have important 
matters to communicate to him.” He pro- 
duced his notebook and said quietly, “His ad- 
dress, please?” 

“I do not know it. But if the business is 
pressing, you might communicate it to me.” 

For an instant the other’s brows met omi- 
nously, but he was a man of great self-control. 
He had the manner of carefully suppressing a 
derisive smile which John found particularly 
offensive, but when he spoke, his voice was res- 
onant and mild. “Truly the business is press- 
ing. But your father alone could pass upon it 
authoritatively. Will he be long absent?” 

“He left no word on that point, but I can 
answer more definitely about my own move- 
ments. I am leaving on the next train, though 
I expect to be back in two days — tomorrow, if 
possible.” 

“Of course,” Glaxton suddenly gave his ef- 
fect of increased darkness, “I will look after 
the household while you are away.” Slowly 
he restored the book to his pocket. “May I 
know how to reach you in case of any accident 
in Lagville?” 

“I’ll be on the move most of the time. Bet- 
ter hold my mail till I get back,” John smiled 
easily. 

“I see. Quite right. Thank you.” 

“Besides, with you here, accidents cannot 
happen,” John added politely. He added with 


The Picture on the Wall 125 

a show of playfulness, they did, I should 
certainly hold you to account.’’ 

Glaxton did not respond to this pleasantry. 
Simmons stopped before the doorway, suitcase 
in hand. ‘‘Take it up to my room, Simmons, 
and wait there for me.” The man vanished 
noiselessly. The master turned sharply to 
John : 

“You don’t like Simmons?” 

“Just like that,” John smiled. “I must ad- 
mit prejudice against such a big fellow with 
such poor fighting capacity. I used to wish I 
were as tall as that rascal, but bulk isn’t every- 
thing. Certainly in this instance, there’s a 
good deal of muscle going to v/aste.” 

“My dear boy,” Glaxton drew down his 
mouth, “don’t let your expert training under 
athletic masters make you intolerant of those 
not so fortunate. And by the way — do you find 
that it keeps you fit to dig in old mother 
earth ?” 

“Digging is healthy exercise,” remarked 
John nonchalantly, “but it is healthier for the 
man with the spade than for anybody watch- 
ing from the shrubbery.” He had instantly di- 
vined that Simmons had either seen the first 
burying of the box, or had guessed it from 
the spade’s condition. 

“Quite right. I did see. Did you find out 
who was watching? Simmons tells me he was 
in the house when he saw your father throw 
the spade under the back porch. Simmons 
says he was not in the shrubbery and he al- 
ways tells me the truth. That is why I employ 
him.” 

There was an easy assurance in the tone that 
convinced John the watcher after all must 
have been Blearstead. Simmons could have 
known nothing of the second burying or of 


126 


The Picture on the Wall 


Blearstead’s coming, yet the master was close 
upon the scent. 

John was uncomfortable. He had the im- 
pression that if they kept talking, though he 
uttered the vaguest remarks, the mystery of 
the money-box and the secret of its key ordi- 
narily kept behind the landscape painting 
would pass into the lawyer’s keeping. 

^‘To be perfectly frank,’’ Glaxton smiled 
slightly, ‘‘it appears that you drove Simmons 
away on a mere pretext. Last night you 
wanted him off the grounds for some purpose 
— this morning you do not object to his pres- 
ence. It makes me think of pirates’ gold and 
old romances. If I could only know what you 
were burying — ^you and your father ! But after 
it was buried, and your father had left, could 
you have wanted to dig it up again? Your 
treatment of Simmons suggests that. These 
fancies have drifted across my mind, and I 
think it nothing but frank and fair to tell you 
so.” 

“I appreciate your frankness, all the more 
so as I imagine it’s a treat you do not always 
give your friends. It occurs to me, however, 
that while you’re finding out a good deal about 
your Cousin John Lyle Warring, he is learning 
very little about you. Bight now, then, is 
when we break our interview into, that each of 
us may keep his particular fragment as a 
pleasant souvenir of memory. To be serious — 
something hard to maintain with so humorous 
a companion — I must run for my train.” 


CHAPTEE XVIII 

BETTIB AGAIN TO THE RESCUE 

In order to catch the early train for Kansas 
City without making his destination known, 
John took the local freight to a nearby town 
and there waited for the cross-country ex- 
press, headed for St. Louis. At Lexington 
Junction he left the car at the tank just be- 
fore the engine pulled up to the station, to 
board a train traveling in the opposite direc- 
tion. In due time he was climbing the long 
flight of iron steps to the waiting-room of the 
Kansas City Union Station. 

After subduing his attire to harmonize with 
the murky environs of Smiling Lane — accom- 
plished by expert shopping at old-clothes shops 
— he hastened toward the disreputable quar- 
ters of his past adventures, yet not so hur- 
riedly as to neglect to choose alleys and by- 
ways safest from his enemies, the guardians of 
the law. 

How remote seemed to him his past, how 
alien were the surroundings which a month 
ago had seemed a fitting setting for his life! 
As on going to Lagville he had been conscious 
of acting a part, like that of a disguised beg- 
gar in scenes of opulence, so now he had the 
feeling of one of the favored classes passing 
himself off as a vagrant. In the midst of foul 
sights and sounds, he found beneath his shab- 
by exterior something of spiritual kinship to 
the picture on the wall. Without doubt there 
was this inner resemblance. 

Alas! such spiritual texture is invisible to 

127 


128 


The Picture on the Wall 


mortal eyes, incapable of demonstration, and 
he must continue to lead the hunted existence 
of a criminal. 

Facing Blearstead’s Eating House, the Smil- 
ing Lane Tenement stood in the shape of a 
flatiron to fit itself into such space as other 
tenements had left. It was usually designat- 
ed as ‘^Old Smiley,” but originally it had been 
dubbed ^^The Cowcatcher,” and to this day 
each of its inmates, irrespective of age or sex 
was called a “cow.” John by virtue of renting 
a front corner room on the second floor be- 
came one of the herd. Though hoping to finish 
his business in the city that night, he of course 
paid a week’s rent in advance, and as far as 
possible confined himself to his squalid apart- 
ment lest he encounter an acquaintance in the 
neighborhood or in the building itself. 

Besides the window facing the alley or 
street that separated Old Smiley’s from his 
uncle’s restaurant, another on the side looked 
out upon a fire-escape, illegally cumbered with 
various washings and made doubly dangerous 
in case of fire, by tangled ropes stretched from 
its railing to upper windows. John’s first care 
was to make sure that this side- window was se- 
curely nailed down, then he drew the curtain 
to the sill, that no one might spy upon him. 
From the front window he could watch Blear- 
stead’s without fear of detection. It was his 
hope that Blearstead might go away after clos- 
ing-time, on some nefarious expedition with 
Cleek, thus leaving an opportunity for a care- 
ful search in his quarters for the stolen jew- 
elry. But if Blearstead remained at home that 
night, John’s stay must be protracted, hence 
a supply of food should be laid in. 

It was dusk before he left his room. Not 
daring to risk recognition in the grocery that 


The Picture on the Wall 


129 


occupied one gloomy corner of the tenement, 
he made hurried purchases from vendor’s push- 
carts and curbstone markets where the flar- 
ing of gasoline torches brought out picturesque 
costumes and striking colors. He loaded him- 
self with hot tamales whose succulent meaty 
meal was almost lost in a wilderness of corn- 
shuck, frankfurters of piping hot sauerkraut, 
dried tongue, shaped like bootheels but flab- 
bier, hard boiled eggs, their whites a pale blue, 
rolls as hard to crack open as nuts, lettuce, 
thick brown pies, sweet pickles in tiny wooden 
boats, cheese not all rind. 

All this he stored away in his room, as far 
as might be from his impossible bed, then took 
up his post at the front window to watch the 
eating house. He soon found that a stranger 
had been employed to wait upon the noisy 
hibitues of the place — a girl unknown to him, 
whose pretty face and slatternly dress showed 
that she had been better cared for by nature 
than ever she had cared for herself. He ob- 
served familiar figures slouching beneath the 
window, drifting across to the restaurant, 
emerging from the swinging doors with jovial 
or lowering faces, but not once did his uncle 
show himself. Once his unmistakable shadow 
fell along the smoke-stained wall of his bed- 
room, and several times his voice came roaring 
across the narrow chasm. 

At eight o’clock, John ate his solitary sup- 
per, his eyes still fixed upon the lights and 
shadows across the way. Cleek swaggered in 
to visit his confederate at a later hour, but 
when he came out alone, John knew his uncle 
would not leave the house that night. That 
meant an extra day of waiting, and the young 
man found what repose he could on a couple of 
chairs. 


130 


The Picture on the Wall 


The morning broke fair and bright. 
Familiar sights, which were to him now queer- 
ly strange, appeared below; the laundry- wag- 
on rattled up to the threshold and the milk- 
wagon ground over the cobblestones. Hawk- 
ers of fruits and vegetables for a time drown- 
ed out the sounds of cursing and crying. 
Evaning came ; but Blearstead, as if some in- 
tuition had warned him of the watcher, kept 
close. 

Just before sunset a girl stopped before 
Blearstead’s with a basket on her arm. She 
had fish to sell. John, at the first glimpse of 
her supple back, knew it was Bettie Hode. He 
longed intensely for her to turn that he might 
catch her eye, but during her negotiations 
with the new waitress she remained in the 
same position. He felt that he could not let 
her depart thus. Not only did he feel for her 
the affection of long years of comradeship, but 
he ardently desired to compare his old stand- 
ards with his new. He had once held her 
above other women — he must see her face 
again. 

When her basket, after very close bargain- 
ing, had been emptied, she crossed the street 
still with head bowed so that he could not 
catch a glampse of her countenance. John’s 
impatience to see her increased enormously. 
As noiselessly as possible he darted from his 
room and sped down the long greasy staircase 
to the ground-corridor which, without win- 
dows, save for a gritty pane in the street- 
door, separated a rankly perfumed barber- 
shop from what had been a saloon but was now 
empty save for a few frank pictures. It was 
under this saloon that John had hidden in the 
cellar on the day of his flight from Blear- 
stead’s. 


The Picture on the Wall 


131 


Near the corridor^s entrance he waited for 
Bettie’s passing, inhaling deeply the cheap per- 
fumes which almost overbore the odor of boil- 
ing cabbage. When her shadow fell past the 
doorway he called cautiously and she, though 
taken wholly by surprise, came straight to him 
as if this were a part of her daily program — 
except for the gladness in her eyes. Their 
hands clasped firmly, but he lost no time in 
leading her to his room where the door was in- 
stantly bolted, a ceremony to be judged strict- 
ly by the code of Smiling Lane. 

Safe from prying eyes, he took her hand 
a^gain — such a hard little hand ! — and they 
looked into each other’s eyes with open pleas- 
ure. 

‘T haven’t got time to stay with you, John,” 
she sighed regretfully, “for Pa gets worse 
every day ; looks like I can’t move without his 
knowing why. He gives me just so long to sell 
the fish, and if I ain’t back when he thinks I 
ought to be, there’s no use my trying to ex- 
plain.” 

“Is he still intimate with Cleek and my 
uncle?” 

“They go out together nearly every night; 
and when Pa gets back it’s morning, and he 
sleeps half the day. They are taking all kinds 
of chances; Ma and I are looking for the 
v/orst every minute. It can’t go on forever. 
You know how that kind of thing always ends. 
But there’s one good thing about Pa; he was 
always determined that Ma and I were never 
to know anything about his doings. If he gets 
into trouble, he’ll not have us suffering for it. 
Pa ain’t all bad.” She lifted her head. “I 
know girls who have lots worse fathers — but 
I’d better be getting back to mine.” 

John had been watching her with grave at- 


132 


The Picture on the Wall 


tention. She was young and pretty, she was 
well-formed. She was honest and faithful and 
without guile. But there stretched between 
them an immeasurable gulf. This gulf, a sort 
of Grand Canyon, had always been there but 
he had not previously realized its separating 
force. If he had been in danger of falling 
over the brink, that was past; he grasped the 
depths and the distances. He knew she could 
not see this barrier; and he admitted that 
to an impartial judge, doubtless a fugitive 
from justice, and a girl whose father was a 
suspected but undetected highwayman, would 
seem in the same class. Perhaps they were. 
She who had kept herself unspotted was per- 
haps superior to one whose uncle had induced 
him to involve himself in a night’s lawless ad- 
venture. 

The principal point for him, driven home by 
this meeting, was that whatever his past or 
present might signify, he could not see Bettie 
with the eyes of a month ago. She was as 
pretty as he had thought her, and had she been 
barefooted he would have found her as charm- 
ingly picturesque; and her friendliness was 
exceedingly grateful to his overcharged nerves. 
But somehow she had been crowded out of 
the near spaces of his heart. He felt aloof 
throug^i no fault of hers, and it saddened him 
to realize that where he saw the yawning can- 
yon her eyes found only a level piain. 

While laying in his provisions, he had hoped 
she might come to the eating house to sell fish, 
that they might feast together in the snug se- 
curity of his room. In the old days it would 
have proved an event of careless gaiety, ro- 
mantically flavored. What had happened? 
All his emotions seemed tightened above the 


The Picture on the Wall 


133 


slacked strings of her easy existence, and soul- 
harmony was out of the question. 

He asked if her father had any designs of 
coming to Lagville to endanger his situation 
or if she knew anything of his uncle^s plans 
relative to his future, but she shook her head. 

‘Ta never tells me anything. But sure 
enough, I’ve got to go.” 

He only sighed. 

“Say, John, I know something about you 
that you don’t know. Ma told me only the 
other day. It’s awful interesting and 
strange.” 

“Let’s have it, Bettie.” 

“No — I won’t tell you, since you ask that 
way,” she pouted, opening the door. 

He roused himself. “Then I ask you this 
way!” he exclaimed with an uncertain laugh, 
holding her close. 

She remained very still. She whispered, 
“Want me to stay a little longer with you, 
John?” 

“Of course I do; only, you mustn’t get in- 
to trouble with your father.” 

“The trouble would pass away,” she mur- 
mured, “and I’d have you to think about. And 
I'm used to trouble. But anyhow — ” she 
slowly drew away — “it was awful interesting, 
what Ma told me. How you’d open your eyes 
if I told !” 

He made a gesture as if to grab her again, 
but she slipped into the hall. 

She said, “But you don’t really want me to 
stay. IPs just to learn the secret.” 

“Bettie! You shan’t say that.” 

“No, I won’t say it; not again. Honestly, 
John, if I thought it would make you hap- 
pier, I’d tell. But Ma says it wouldn’t. She 
said not to let you know, ever or ever. Your 


134 


The Picture on the Wall 


mother told her, years ago. But if the day 
ever comes when I think it right for you to 
know, I’m going to tell, anyhow, yes I am!” 
She asked wistfully, ^^Are you ever coming 
back here — I mean, to live?” 

“But, Bettie, what could it have been? I 
must know, really.” 

He started after her, but she passed light- 
ly to the head of the stairs. “Maybe I’ll tell 
you — oh, certain sure I’ll do whatever you 
want me to do, John — when you come back. 
To stay — ” 

Suddenly she raised a warning arm. He 
understood the signal. The police were at 
the foot of the stairs. On tiptoe he gained his 
room, locked the door and braced himself 
against it. 

“Hello, Bettie!” called a policeman whose 
voice John recognized. “Where’s our friend 
John Walters?” 

“I guess he’s wherever he went,” Bettie re- 
plied, showing her teeth in an easy smile. It 
was diflScult to ruffle her hard-tested exterior. 

“Oh, I guess not. He was right here.' You 
must have put him in your pocket. Come, 
come, Bettie, play square. What have you 
done with him? Tell us where he is.” 

Bettie answered: “I can tell you what he 
says about it.” 

She drew from her bosom the letter John 
had written her on the eve of his escape from 
Old Smiley’s cellar. John could distinctly 
hear one of the men reading it aloud to his 
companions, and as the old phrases came to 
him, he had the uncanny feeling of listening 
to the utterance of a dead self. 

“Dear Bettie: 

“It’s like going fishing without bait to leave 
town without telling you good-by. In the East 


The Picture on the Wall 


13S. 


I hope to lose myself, big as I am, for I care 
not for fame. Listen to my advise, my dear: 
keep out of the newspapers, for there’s nothing 
to it. If I succeed in hiding behind the trees 
of Manhattan — that’s geography for New York 
City — I’m going, to build a little cabin down 
on Wall Street where the wolves can’t get over 
into my yard. And later, you’ll come to me, 
won’t you, Bettie, and be my little wife? 
When it’s muddy, we’ll clean our shoes on the 
skyscrapers and when times are dull we’ll get 
on an Elevated and if the cops come nosing 
around in their police-boats we’ll sink our- 
selves in a subway and pull under our peri- 
scopes. The world is fuller of girls than of 
boys, but there’s only one I ever kissed when 
we said good-by, and I’ve set her a chair at the 
head of my table marked ‘Bettie.’ If any oth- 
er lady tries to get into it, she’ll get such a 
hard seat on the floor that she’ll see you in the 
air looking like a big star. This isn’t plain 
talk, but when you’re in love, you wear frilled 
shirts ; — 

Life will be all joyrides, bright lights and 
confetti 

When I am plain John Walters and have 
my little Bettie.” 

“That’s a love-letter,” said one of the men. 

Bettie answered pertly, “I took it for such.” 

“It’s a plain offer,” said another. “Here’s 
the post mark, ‘New York.’ He invented this 
poetiy on the train and mailed her after he 
reached his destination. It’s marked March 
4th. That ^ows he must have gone straight 
there.” 

“Couldn’t hardly get there in that time 
could he?” the first objected. 

“Yes, if he didn’t lose any time. That was 
sure a bad lead to Lagville!” 


136 


The Picture on the Wall 


‘‘Look here,” the sergeant suddenly address- 
ed Bet tie. “Well agree that he jumped to 
New York. But he was seen in town last 
night. Certain sure. Down on the curb. He^s 
in this house, and you came to meet him. And 
I believe he’s in this room.” 

He gave John’s door a kick that made it 
jump on its hinges. 

“Don’t you dare disturb that room,” Bettie 
cried with seeming indignation. She drop- 
ped her basket to squeeze herself between them, 
and the portal. “You’ll never go in there!” 

The murky corridor was filling with curi- 
ous children. Opened doors let sickly bars of 
light crisscross on the floor. Opposite Bettie 
a woman, formless and unconfined, with the 
lingering beauty of an overblown rose about 
to drop its petals, stared at the officers with 
dark hostility. Every face that peered under 
cobwebbed lintels scowled with hatred. Bettie 
appealed over the sergeant’s shoulder to this 
woman whom she had never seen before. 

“Can he go in there, Mrs. Flannigan?” 

“God strike him dead if he does,” grated 
the woman whose name was O’Conner. 

Bettie glared at the officer with the expres- 
sion of a wildcat. “Can’t you leave even the 
dead alone?” 

Mrs. O’Conner shouted, taking this hint 
with swift subtlety, “A poor little mite laid 
out for her coffin, and the next of kin to ber 
without a cent to pay for the coffin and all! 
A dead child that never had no chance in this 
world at all. She was hounded from the 
cradle and now she can’t lay on her deathbed 
in peace!” 

“Oh, the shame of it,” shrieked another wo- 
man. A wail went up from the cell-like cham- 
bers on either side. 


The Picture on the Wall 137 

Bettie spoke to the men appeasiagly. “But 
you never knew the truth of it, of course. 
You wouldn’t do as Mrs. Flannigan says if you 
had to cut off your rights hands to keep from 
doing it. You’re real men, I know that much.” 

The sergeant addressed his men gruffly. 
“Come along.” 

“Thank God,” cried Mrs. O’Conner hysteri- 
cally, “there’s a worse world than this for 
them that needs it!” 

At the head of the stairs they met a huge 
unkempt fellow pounding upward. 

“Why, hello, Blearstead,” the sergeant 
spoke easily ; “coming to call on your 
nephew ?” 

Blearstead stopped aghast, then shot a 
venomous glance at Bettie. 

The officer smiled. “Don’t blame the girl, 
she put up a plucky fight to get rid of us. I 
suppose the rumor that reached us about John 
Walters must have found its way to you. 
What do you think? Must be something in 
it, eh?” 

To his men he said, “We’ll go back. I don’t 
think it right to leave little girls unattended 
on their deathbeds. We may have to take up 
a subscription for that coffin among ourselves.” 
He glanced admiringly at Bettie. “You can 
go, girl. You’ve earned it.” 

But Bettie, white to the lips, stood with 
hand pressed to her side. 

He drew his revolver and covered Blearstead. 
“But I want you to stay. This is to be a sort 
of family party.” He issued the crisp order 
to his men: “Break open that door.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE JEWELS 

Scarcely a word and very few movements in 
the hall had escaped John’s intent ears. He 
comprehended perfectly what had happened. 
The evening before, while making his purchas- 
es or while carrying them to Old Smiley, he 
had been seen by friend and foe and various- 
ly reported. It crashed upon him as with 
the falling of a roof upon his head that if he 
were captured, his life to its very end must 
prove a pitiful unfulfillment of all he had 
hoped and his friends had hoped for him. 

He rushed to the side- curtain, tore it from 
its fastenings and strained at the window that 
looked out upon the fire escape. The nails 
that held down the sash were bent or broken 
in the strength of his desperation and he slid 
down the slender ladder as blows began to 
rain upon the door of the now deserted room. 

To the mouldy bricks of a passageway of a 
few feet in width he dropped without exciting 
marked attention, and without tripping over 
entangling ropes more than twice. Rumors of 
the police invasion had drawn into the tene- 
ment such of the neighborhood as felt curiosi- 
ty stronger than need of flight. No one lin- 
gered before the front door but the ground-cor- 
rider was populous with round-eyed children, 
and dark figures stood expectantly on the stair- 
case. 

A splitting sound followed by a heavy jar 
told that the door had been burst in. In a 
moment faces would be glaring down into the 

138 


The Picture on the Wall 139 

triangular court. With amazing speed John 
flew to his uncle’s restaurant; but when the 
door was reached he sauntered in with the non- 
chalance of one who has more time at his dis- 
posal than he has planned to use. 

Several laborers, prevented by the duties of 
evening shift from watching proceedings 
across the way, were audibly taking their chile 
on the high stools before the counter, John 
‘fancied he knew one of them and prudently 
abstained from a closer examination. Pulling 
his slouch-hat low down over his forehead and 
jerking up his coat-collar, he ordered “Ham- 
burger,” roughly. The peril of his situation 
did not produce the quiver of a muscle. Alert 
and keen of brain he noted the changes that 
had taken place during his absence, caught the 
fact that the workmen whose backs were to- 
ward his little table were oblivious of his pres- 
ence in their eager discussion about affairs at 
Washington, and through an upper pane of a 
street-window observed a policeman looking 
from his rented room. 

The strange waitress came for his order and 
vanished behind the curtain guarding the gaso- 
line stove whence immediately issued the hiss- 
ing of meat on greasy hot iron. Silently he 
slid from behind the table and vanished 
through the door of the room in which he had 
once passed the night concealed in the laun- 
dry-basket. 

Everything looked much the same, and in 
his secret place in the wall he found undis- 
turbed the private keys of which his uncle 
knew nothing. He was sure this was his only 
chance of escape but he moved as collectedly 
as if one chance were all anybody could rea- 
sonably require, taking comfort in the fact 


140 


The Picture on the Wall 


that this narrow chamber with its skylight 
had no outside door. 

The keys secured, he glided to the stairway, 
gained the upper hall and reached his uncle’s 
door. One of the keys fitted the lock perfectly. 
In a moment he was in the bedroom with the 
door locked behind him, the key remaining 
in the lock. He stood under an uneven ceiling 
which in one place came down to within a yard 
of the footboard. An oldfashioned folding-bed 
stood against the wall at the only place high 
enough to receive it. There was very little 
furniture. In the shabby rugs little brown 
holes recorded hours spent with an unsteady 
pipe. 

Here he believed he would be safe until his 
uncle came. He might not be allowed to come, 
yet there was little hope that the police would 
feel justified in his retention. How he might 
take the invasion of his private quarters must 
be left to chance. Furious he would be, cer- 
tainly, and alarmed on finding that John 
could enter at will; but there was a possi- 
bility — not very strong — that he might fail to 
divine the other’s real motive. 

In the past, the duplicate key had unlocked 
for John many of his uncle’s secrets, hence he 
was not obliged to lose any time seeking hid- 
ing-places. He knew them all and in the first 
explored — a hollow under the floor, exposed 
by drawing back a rug and lifting a loose 
plank — he found the Warring jewels: the 
pearl necklace, the platinum rings with their 
diamonds — everything. In the rush of his de- 
light, astonishment over the quick success van- 
ished as soon as it came; it was as if he had 
always known he would find them there. 

Spreading his handkerchief out upon the 
floor, one secured at the old-clothes shop for 


The Picture on the Wall 141 

the purpose, he heaped thereon the jems to 
make them up in a safe packet. There was 
not very much light in the room ; there never 
was; but a warm glow bathed his hands as 
he slipped the precious stones between his fin- 
gers. From below came faint sounds from the 
dining-room, but about him it was very still. 
He could hear himself breathing. Street 
sounds were no noisier than usual. The room 
was at the back of the house and the single 
window looked out upon roofs and chimneys, 
hence he could not know what was taking 
place in Old Smiley. 

Surely Bettie would not come to grief for 
her part in the comedy. Plucky little girl! 
What a pity her advantages had not been bet- 
ter. As brave as the bravest, as true as steel, 
if she were, for instance, like Lucia — but there 
was only one Lucia. He seemed to see Lucia 
in the flashing of the jewels. This necklace 
had lain round her neck on the night of the 
reception in his honor. If those who had 
warmly greeted him on that occasion, while 
his ‘Tather^^ looked on so proudly, could see 
him now! — 

Suddenly he looked over his shoulder to find 
Blearstead standing in the room regarding him 
under beetling brows, his nose and mouth 
writhing horribly. He was in his stockinged 
feet and could have come only through the 
little door behind the folding-bed, a door John 
had never known to be used, and had supposed 
fastened up. Without doubt the other had dis- 
covered the key in the hall door and without 
attempting to force it open had shown the ad- 
vantage of his secret means of entrance. 

John dropped the handkerchief and the jew- 
els were scattered over the floor. 


142 


The Picture on the Wall 


Blearstead glared at him with the silent 
ferocity of a wild beast about to spring. 

John snatched up by its handle a defensive 
object which he had taken from a shelf before 
drawing up the loosened floor-planks; it was 
a notary seal weighing about six pounds. He 
leaped to his feet whirling the instrument in a 
wide circle about his head. ^^Stay where you 
are/’ he warned him, ‘^or I’ll brain you.” 

^Tut that thing down!” Blearstead’s voice 
was a quivering snarl. Kage tore at his vitals 
like a physical agony. He was sane enough to 
realize that whatever passed in the room must 
be kept to a subdued key but within the limits 
of this instinctive caution he was a raging 
tempest and for the moment the violence of his 
emotions filled the boundaries of conscious- 
ness. Almost at once, however, there became 
room for comprehension of the young man’s 
mood. 

His nephew was not, like himself, storm- 
tossed; all the same, there was death in his 
calm depths. ‘‘If you come one step nearer,” 
came the voice that no longer sounded young, 
“I will smash in your skull.” 

Blearstead’s great breast rose and fell rapid- 

ly- 

John went on, his voice without inflexion, 
his mouth and chin like graven marble, “We’d 
better understand each other. I’d rather die 
than spend my years in the penitentiary ; but 
I’d rather pass my life in the penitentiary 
than ever come under your power again. Put 
up your hands. Turn with your face to the 
folding-bed. And stand perfectly still while 
I search you. Uncle though you are. I’ll kill 
you if you wait until I count four. One — 
two — ” 

Blearstead’s fury was less than his terror 


The Picture on the Wall 143 

of the fixed eyes. He turned cumbrously and 
stood as directed while his pockets were 
emptied. John examined the revolver thus se- 
cured, found it loaded, and retreated with it to 
the gaping hole in the floor. 

^Wou may turn now. Sit down on this 
chair.’^ John shoved a chair up to the bed 
then went back, knelt, spread out his handker- 
chief and began reassembling the Warring 
treasures. As he worked, always with the 
weapon within reach of his hand, he talked 
steadily while Blearstead scowled from his 
wooden chair. 

^J’m taking back to their owners the things 
you stole. You think I want them for my- 
self, but that’s because you never understood 
me and my mother and never wanted to under- 
stand us. By sheer brute strength you were 
able to keep me down. Well, I haven’t the 
brute strength to overcome you, but I have 
something better — this gun and the resolution 
to use it if necessary though the sound of it 
should bring all the police down upon me. 
Of course in times past I could have drawn a 
gun on you time and again, but a man’s a fool 
to pull a gun unless ready to go to the limit. 
I never felt that I could kill you till now. I’ve 
been weak. That’s what got me into the 
trouble on Troost Avenue and that’s what put 
me in my false position in Lagville. But I’m 
not weak now. I don’t think I am. You can 
try me if you want to. But there’s no use 
thinking I’m the same John Walters who left 
this joint last month. I’ve had the breath of 
the life that counts blowing in my face and 
I’ll never suffocate again in your narrow 
circle of living.” 

Blearstead muttered, “He’s crazy.” He 
sought to compose his face in more agreeable. 


144 


The Picture on the Wall 


lines. you had your senses, newy, you’d 
die of shame at being that ungrateful. What 
I’ve done for you only the angels could keep 
count of. Nursed you and fed you and clothed 
you and put money in your pocket. And your 
ma, too. The only hope I got is that you’re 
crazy and don’t know what you’re doing. I 
took in you and poor sister Anne Walters 
when nobody cared if you was starving — you 
with your broken leg twice broke. You wasn’t 
so particular about my ^narrow circle of liv- 
ing’ then. You was glad to get in the center 
of it to keep warm. You’re awful moral, you 
are, threatening to murder your own uncle in 
cold blood, passing yourself off as a million- 
aire’s son and stealing the loot from him that 
had the trouble of getting it. You must have 
got religion over yonder! But you’re crazy, 
that’s the straight of it. Poor John! I could 
cry! And all the cops in Kansas City after 
you! They ought to have you in the moving 
pictures. But I won’t say any more. You’re 
just naturally and constitutionally crazy and 
can’t help it.” 

John carefully tied together the corners of 
the handkerchief. ‘^My mother taught me such 
contempt for thieves that I’ve always been 
ashamed to call you uncle. If you hadn’t hunt- 
ed her up and fastened yourself upon us, I 
believe she’d be alive today. We didn’t want 
you to meddle in our affairs. It’s true we were 
poor. She spent all she could make to give 
me the best education she could pay for, but 
we were happy — till you found us. It’s true 
that when I had my fall you helped me. Well, 
I paid for everything by hard work in the din- 
ing-room, and by going with you and Cleek 
on that Troost Avenue job. As for pretending 
to be John Lyle Warring, it was only to get 


The Picture on the Wall 


145 


my breath; I haven’t done any harm and I 
shall leave there in a few days, taking nothing 
with me.” 

Blearstead cried out in dismay. 

^^And you are to leave me alone,” John add- 
ed threateningly. ^‘You are not to come there 
again. If you do, I’ll expose you and Cleek if 
I die for it.” 

Blearstead grew purple. ‘‘So you’ll turn 
State’s evidence, you cursed traitor.” 

“No — because you’ll not visit Lagville 
again.” 

Blearstead started up with an oath. “You 
say you’ll expose me and Cleek if you die for 
it. I say, you’d better die first!” 

John grabbed the revolver and stood up- 
right. “I realize what it would mean for a 
shot to be heard, but that wouldn’t prevent 
me. You never knew any one more determin- 
ed, for there’s only one course of action open 
to' me and I shall take it. I hope you won’t 
get in the way.” 

Blearstead tried to out-stare him, then surli- 
ly dropped his eyes. 

“Remember if you set foot in Lagville, I 
shall give you up. I don’t know all your 
crimes but I know enough.’’ He moved to the 
door. “If you try to stop me after this door 
is closed. I’ll call for help, turn the valuables 
over to the police and end it. Sit down in 
that chair. I advise you to stay in it till I’m 
out of the neighborhood so you won’t be 
tempted to get yourself into trouble. You see 
I’m not ungrateful ; I’m thinking of your own 
good ; and it’s not for your good to try to get 
between me and liberty.” 

John concealed the precious packet under 
his coat and left the room. 

No sound came from Blearstead. 


146 


The Picture on the Wall 


A back stairway, the steps worn to concave 
shallows by the stealthy feet of criminals, led 
to a cellar which by an underground passage 
brought John to another cellar beyond the pas- 
sageway. Half an hour later he was riding on 
a streetcar in a crowded section of the city. 
Downtown he took an interurban car that car- 
ried him away through country fields and lit- 
tle towns to a famous health resort where he 
spent the night, and effected a change of 
clothes. The next morning he went by motor- 
car to an inland village whence the train 
brought him back to Lagville. 

It was the same train that had first brought 
him to the river-town and he felt sure his 
coming would prove as unexpected as on that 
historic occasion. He was therefore bewilder- 
ed to discover the Warring automobile drawn 
up at the edge of the platform as if to do him 
honor. In the front seat were Mrs. Abbotts- 
field and her daughter. His first moment of 
stupefaction over the thought that they had 
in some mysterious manner learned of his 
movements, gave way to the reasonable infer- 
ence that they had come to meet somebody 
else. 

Virgie, at the wheel, gave him a startled 
glance and her face perceptibly darkened, caus- 
ing him to remember what had all this while 
been forgotten, the strange glances she had 
given him the night of the robbery. He re- 
called her alleged “headache” of the following 
morning and his suspicion that it had been 
invented to save her from facing him by day- 
light. All this now seemed suddenly impor- 
tant, but his manner -did not betray uneasi- 
ness. He greeted Mrs. Abbottsfield with the 
gravity she liked, then hailed Virgie as if 
there were no cloud between them. 


The Picture on the Wall 


147 


Finding her response constrained, he deter- 
mined to go to her at once for an explanation 
of the mystery. However, before he could car- 
ry out this swiftly and, under the circumstanc- 
es, recklessly formed plan, a hand grasped his 
arm. 

Lucians joyful surprise, openly, even proud- 
ly expressed, was so delightful — the densely 
packed Sunday-afternoon crowd of sight-seers 
had before shut her off from his view — that 
Virgie faded in its radiance to a negligible 
shadow. 

‘‘How perfectly splendid!” Lucia excitedly 
squeezed his arm. “But don’t be puffed up 
with the idea that we came to meet you.” 
Then he discovered behind her a young woman 
who had evidently come on the same train. 
There was something oddly familiar about her 
thoughtful gray eyes. 

Lucia cried gaily, “Alice — ” 

But the introduction was never finished. 
The gray eyes widened, the little mouth open- 
ed swiftly and as swiftly closed, while the 
trim figure shook as from contact with a pow- 
erful battery. 

Lucia interrupted herself. “I do believe you 
two have already met!” 

“Of course we have!” John said with bril- 
liant hardness. His reckless air was that of a 
man falling over a precipice who, in falling, 
desires to leave behind him the memory of a 
pleasant smile. “Of course we have met. This 
is Miss Alice Klade. How nice, seeing you 
again like this! Do you know, it was my un- 
derstanding that you were not coming for a 
week !” 

Alice Klade did not return his bow. 


148 


The Picture on the Wall 


Lucia, supposing her friend too astonished 
at the unexpected meeting to make suitable 
response, said playfully as she patted John’s 
arm, ‘‘Oh, Alice! To think of your knowing 
my brother! You must be very nice to him.” 


CHAPTER XX 

THE POLITE BURGLAR 

^^Your brother!’’ Alice ejaculated, starting 
back with increased pallor and staring at John 
with ej'es wider than before. “What do you 
mean ?” 

Lucia, bewildered by the agitation of her in- 
timate friend with all of whose looks and in- 
tonations she had supposed herself thoroughly 
familiar, appealed to John. “But where could 
you have known Alice?” 

“You can’t wonder that she didn’t know me 
to be your brother,” he returned, “when I 
wasn’t aware of it myself. Not at that time, 
you understand. For it was before I discov- 
ered Lag^dlle. I remember perfectly. But 
really T can’t tell where we were.” He felt 
convinced that the last beams of life’s sunshine 
were fading from his vision, but he bravely 
maintained his self-control. “Where was it, 
Miss Klade?” 

He left it for her to explain that on the 
only occasion of their encounter she had been 
in bed. 

The guest closed her eyes as if the light had 
suddenly grown too strong for them, but no 
words escaped the straight lines of her lips. 

They were pushed toward the car by the 
slowly moving crowd. Lucia was still too 
deeply pleased over the return of her “brother” 
to be acutely aware of what was going on 
around her; but Virgie and her mother were 
watching the scene, the girl with brooding 

149 


150 


The Picture on the Wall 


glances, the other with keen eyes which noth- 
ing escaped. 

John smiled brightly at Lucia. “I can’t get 
over the impression that your friend was not 
coming until next week!” 

“She wasn’t. But when I wrote about fa- 
ther’s being away, she hurried up her visit. 
And now, you know, since the event she was 
expecting to help me get ready for is not going 
to happen — ” she laughed a little nervously, 
but did not blush at this vague reference to 
the broken engagement. 

John bestowed his hard, fixed smile upon 
Alice Klade. There was no use to climb into 
the automobile only to be driven out the next 
moment by exposure. “How delightful for 
you to be with Lucia while her father’s away,” 
he murmured, gathering strength for the at- 
tack. “A pleasure not expected so soon — 

Again Alice Klade’s mouth moved without 
producing any sound. She was a reserved girl, 
averse to display of emotion, one who preferred 
quietly to give way before the noisy forces of 
daily life rather than battle for her opinions 
or struggle to vantage ground by self-assertion. 
Lucia, a brisker and more resolute character, 
respected her taste for quiet and subdued tones 
in colors, voice-melody, thought and action. 
But while she was content for Alice to efface 
herself for the sake of peace, she had no in- 
tention of imitating her example. As a result, 
Lucia was accustomed to take the lead and 
was surprised and at times discomfited when on 
rare occasions her friend raised her head with 
independent opinions of her own. 

“You are tired out with your trip,” Lucia 
said sympathetically, slipping her arm about 
Alice’s waist. As usual, she took for granted 
that she knew what the other was feeling and 


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151 


thinking and what was best for her as well. 

must get you out of this glaring sun. Why 
do we stand here anyway? What are you wait- 
ing for?” Then she called vivaciously to Vir- 
gie, “What do you think? These two already 
know each other!” 

“So I observed,” Virgie answered gravely, 
her hands grasping the steering-wheel with 
whitened knuckles. John had never thought 
her nose so long. He wondered her mother did 
not complain of it. 

When the automobile glided from the plat- 
form, John was in the tonneau between Lucia 
and Alice Klade. The latter sat removed as 
far from him as the side of the car would per- 
mit, but Lucia, holding his hand, left no space 
between them. 

“How fine you are looking!” Lucia cried, 
gazing up into his face with affectionate ad- 
miration, and, as usual, not expecting Alice 
to say anything. “I don’t know how we lived 
without you! You mustn’t ever go away 
again.” 

Her words were such as Bettie might have 
uttered, and the fondness of her eyes was no 
deeper than Bettie’s. Yet the manner of her 
speech and the expression of what she felt was 
that of another world and John, recalling his 
experiences of the past three days, felt that he 
had brought an unwholesome atmosphere into 
the simple village life. 

Lucia went on gaily, “I can’t wait until we 
get home to find out how and when and where 
you and Alice became friends. What one of 
you has forgotten surely the other can supply. 
Oh, Alice! When I used to talk about my -dar- 
ing brother having been kidnapped, wasn’t it 
strange it didn’t occur to you that the John 
Lyle Warring you knew was my John Lyle 


152 


The Picture on the Wall 


Warring ! Because, it^s such an unusual 
name; with such an unusual history!” 

“As to that,” John ventured, observing that 
Alice made no sign of speech, “it just comes to 
me — yes, it’s getting quite clear, everything is 
— you can’t blame Miss Klade — ” 

“But you must call her Alice,” Lucia pro- 
tested. “She is my Alice, and she must be 
your Alice.” 

“Certainly.” 

Lucia gave Alice a hug and added teasingly, 
“And you mustn’t judge her by her silence; 
she is always quiet.” 

“I was about to say that when we met, Alice 
didn’t learn my name.” 

Mrs. Abbottsfield, looking over the back of 
the front seat echoed, “Didn’t learn your name! 
How — how unconventional !” 

“It was, rather,” John admitted, “but it was 
a chance meeting, entirely unexpected on both 
sides. Oh, yes, it was altogether accidental.” 
He bent forward seeking to catch Alice’s ex- 
pression, but she only tried to withdraw far- 
ther; without success. Was she determined to 
betray him then and there, or would it better 
suit her abhorrence of public scenes to wait 
for the seclusion of her friend’s private room? 

Alice at last spoke. It could hardly be 
further delayed. But she spoke without hav- 
ing formed any definite plan. “I never knew 
— oh, not once did it occur to me that — that 
he was your brother 

These words told John that Alice did not 
question the relationship but was appalled by 
its implications. 

“Of course I understand that, honey; but 
where could it have been?” 

The last place, Alice imagined, that Lucia 
could have guessed. She did not know what 


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153 


to say. How could she tell Lucia that her 
brother was a housebreaker? Yet if this 
dreadful fact were not revealed, a plausible 
tale must supply the blank. Alice had not de- 
cided to hide anything, and even if she wished 
to do so she knew herself to be too profoundly 
distressed for creative work. 

She began slowly, “It was in Kan — 

Lucia began speaking at the same time, con- 
sequently drowning out the less-assured voice: 
“Of course we know it couldn’t have been in 
Kansas City for John says he was never there 
in his life.” 

Alice paused with open mouth. 

'Mrs. Abbottsfield, leaning over her seat, ex- 
claimed, “But Alice was going to say Kansas 
City !” 

“Oh, no,” interposed John, resenting the eld- 
erly lady’s air of trying to catch him in an 
error. Her expression of malicious satisfac- 
tion — such, at least, it appeared to him, though 
doubtless he misjudged her — ^had the effect of 
putting him wholly at his ease. “Not Kansas 
City,” he continued, “but Canada. Yes, how 
it all comes to me!” He looked at Lucia. 
“This is the romance, the story: It is even- 
ing. And rather late at that. After dark. 
But of course it grows darker there earlier 
than in this latitude.” 

Lucia was surprised and looked blankly at 
her friend. “Alice! I never knew you’d been 
to Canada. And I thought you’d told me of 
all your travels!” 

Alice said faintly, “Our train ran through 
a corner of Canada in running from New Y’'ork 
to Chicago.” She now gazed at John. Her 
eyes were fascinated. 

He caught his breath in quick relief. 
Would she follow his lead, after aU? 


154 


The Picture on the Wall 


Alice spoke as under a hypnotic spell. ^Tor 
one thing, I remember there’s a little Cana- 
dian town just across the river from Detroit 
called Windsor.” 

John exclaimed eagerly, ^Will I ever forget 
that little town! Wasn’t you hungry, though! 
But of course all of us were nearly starved.” 

She looked at him, saying nothing. In spite 
of her sinister knowledge she found him infi- 
nitely less terrible than she could have deemed 
possible. 

He explained to Lucia, ^Wou see the snows 
get awfully deep in Canada. Cold country, 
that is. When the trains get stalled in the 
drifts, sometimes it’s a matter of days before 
they can be dug out.” He looked at Alice. 
^‘Did you ever see anything like it?” 

“I never did,” she admitted. She felt her- 
self borne beyond the borderline of abstract 
morality into a practical country exceedingly 
full of interest. 

“But 1 made a tunnel to a little restaurant 
and came back with something to eat; some 
beef and plum pudding and a jar of tea — the 
Canadians are great on such things. English, 
you know.” 

“You saved me,” Alice murmured. “When 
I first saw you, I thought I was going to die. 
I thought I should surely die! It was — 

“And you gave me a book as a souvenir. Do 
you remember that book of poems? I know 
some of it by heart. There was one poem 
named, ‘Give a Fellow a Chance.’ Do you re- 
member that?” 

She shook her head, still spell-bound. 

“It goes like this : 

‘When you meet a man that’s trying hard, 
so hard, to make good. 


The Picture on the Wall 


155 


No matter what the cloud may have been 
That you’ve found him in — 

^been’ and ^in’ are the only rhymes in the thing 
except those coming now — look close for ’em 
— you see, Lucia, this is Free Verse — hold 
tight : 

‘No matter what the circumstance. 

Oh, give him a chance.’ ” 

“I don’t remember any such poem,” Alice 
remarked, gradually finding herself, “but I ap- 
prove of the sentiment. I’m glad you liked the 
book. It was one of my favorites. I used to 
read it just before I went to sleep, but that 
night I’d left it on the table.” 

Lucia burst out laughing. “But, honey ! 
You hadn’t gone to bed.” 

Alice caught her breath and John looked at 
her reproachfully. “You’d better let me tell 
this,” he remarked gravely. “Yes, Lucia, of 
course she had. I’m afraid I haven’t made the 
scene plain to you. She was in her berth, 
naturally too hungry to care for poetry. What 
she needed was solid victuals; and when I ap- 
peared before her with the beef and all — 
well, naturally there was nothing convention- 
al about our meeting.” 

Mrs. Abbottsfield offered an objection : 
“Alice, I thought you took that trip to New 
York in May.” 

“It was a late snow,” John explained. “You 
can always count on a late snow up north. 
Why don’t you ask what luck I had with my 
detective?” 

“I have that in the back of my mind,” Lucia 
declared, “but you are so much more interest- 
ing than all the diamonds in the world — ” 

“Help, help!” John appealed to the heavens. 
His spirits were enormously restored. “Vir- 


156 


The Picture on the Wall 


gie/’ he called, ‘‘turn and give me a look; I 
need a tonic.’^ 

But Virgie did not turn her exceedingly stiff 
neck. 

Lucia laughed at Alice as she patted his 
shoulder. “Honey, he isn’t used to being 
loved. He doesn’t know yet how to take it! 
But why did you never tell me about this Can- 
adian romance? It makes me jealous!” And 
she scowled delightfully. 

“I say,” John cried, drawing away from Lu- 
cia and feeling a delightful warmth that he had 
no right to feel, “this won’t do. I must give 
you something to keep your hands full.” 
Drawing forth his packet, he poured the gems 
into her lap. “Every one’s there, I hope. 
Count and see.” 

Lucia gave a little cry of delight and Alice 
one of admiration, but still Virgie did not turn 
her head though its stiffness showed that she 
was aware of what was going on in the ton- 
neau. 

The car stopped before the Warring resi- 
dence and John sighed, “Home again!” His 
smile faded as he speculated on how long Alice 
would keep the secret and how soon it might 
be before Blearstead made another attempt 
upon the house. 


CHAPTER XXI 

LUCIA ON THE RIVER-BLUFF 

As soon as Alice Klade had been installed 
in her room, Lucia, without waiting for the 
excitement over the restored jewelry to sub- 
side, called John to the automobile which had 
been left before the gate. ^‘Come with me,’^ 
she said with her usual breathless excitement 
when embarking upon a new adventure. “IVe 
found the most wonderful spot for watching 
the sun set, and while we’re waiting there, 
you must tell all about your trip, and how 
your detective traced down the rings and neck- 
lace.” 

He was glad to escape from the house, for 
Mrs. Abbottsfield’s reserve, Virgie’s aloofness 
and Alice’s inscrutable gray eyes suggested 
all sorts of unpleasant possibilities. With 
Lucia he could put behind him the past and 
ignore the future. He took the wheel, and she 
in the front seat at his side, directed their 
course. The road took them abruptly away 
from the village into the open country with 
the sun at their back. 

‘‘Spring’s here,” she said, looking into his 
face with shining eyes, “unmistakably and 
whole-heartedly here; and Cousin Claxton is 
gone.” 

“Gone!” he echoed, the name of the lawyer 
doing something to temper the beating of his 
heart under her adorable eyes of blue. “That 
makes it full summer, doesn’t it?” he added 
lightly. “What do you mean by ‘gone’?” 

“All we know is that he has gone away,” 

157 


158 


The Picture on the Wall 


she said gaily, /‘and all we care is that he’s 
gone away!” 

“Left Simmons?” 

“No, I think you must have intimidated him, 
somehow. I’m expecting a letter directing us 
to forward their trunks! You stood up to 
Cousin Claxton, and he never had any one to 
stand up to him before.” 

John tried desperately to recall his “stand- 
ing up” during his only interview with the 
lawyer, but could not read intimidation on the 
dark face of his enemy. He shook his head. 
“I’m afraid you flatter me.” 

“Perhaps I do, you wonderful boy; but how 
can I help it?— I’m so immensely proud of 
you.” 

“Proud !” he deprecated her enthusiasm 
while it stirred his blood. 

“Yes, proud of you every way; your bear- 
ing, your beautiful eyes — ” 

“Lucia, you’d better not say these things to 
me. Every one knows his own disposition bet- 
ter than others can know it. I know it isn’t 
good for mine to be told such things.” 

“Then I’ll say I’m proud of your quickness 
in picking up the little manners and habits 
that matter, and dropping those that don’t. I 
don’t believe there’s one in a thousand that 
could have changed as you have in the past 
few weeks.” 

“I had you to change for. That’s what did 
it.” 

“And I’m thinking of what you’ll be in the 
years to come. And you’re so easy about ev- 
erything. You carry yourself as if you didn’t 
matter to yourself at all, but must matter to 
everybody else. You’re always ready. You 
can’t think how I value that as a gift — always 
being ready. Eeady for anything. And then 


The Picture on the Wall 


159 


your looks. There’s no one within miles and 
miles — Yes, I am prond of you, and I’ll not be 
intimidated into keeping still about it.” 

course I know you’re my friend,” he 
murmured, letting himself bask. 

“Your friend !” She repudiated the term with 
warmth that made his blood tingle. “You 
know I love you as I’ve never loved any one.” 
She broke off to laugh at her own passionate 
insistence, then said lightly, “And I think it 
only fair that you should say something nice 
to me occasionally.” She added with a teas- 
ing smile, “Which you never do.” 

“There’s something to be said, I own,” he 
responded with careful slowness, “and some 
day it may be counted to me for righteousness 
that I didn’t say it.” He gave a short laugh. 
“You see, I’m not used to being a brother. 
I’d be sure to say something awkward. But 
you’re all right, Lucia.” 

“Do you mean quite all right?” 

“Just like that.” 

“That’s another thing I adore in you,” she 
declared smiling. “You’re so shy! If you like 
what I’m wearing or how I arrange my hair, 
it couldn’t be awkward once in a while to say 
so — or just that you are pleased that I am 
pleased with you.” 

“All right. I must remember that.” 

“It isn’t something for you to remember, 
but to begin on right now.” She interrupted 
herself to order the car stopped. They were 
at the margin of the woods and it was neces- 
sary to walk the rest of the way along a 
seldom-used path that led through dense under- 
growth and over wild grasses. As they fol- 
lowed the trail arm-in-arm, she persisted: 

“You must ^remember that,’ you say. Why 
not tie a string around your finger to suggest 


160 


The Picture on the Wall 


saying, ^Lncia, yonr dress is becoming!’ Now 
John, confess: didn’t yon take a romantic in- 
terest in Alice when feeding her in her berth 
like a bird in its nest? Beware, my brother! 
She and the Rev. Harry Tredmill are engaged, 
and yon have claimed Brother Tredmill as 
yonr friend.” 

He laughed. ‘^Upon my word, though I’ve 
often thought of yonr friend as the night-girl 
who woke np to find me hovering near, the 
memory has never been tonched by sentiment.” 

Then he nttered a cry of delight. The last 
rampart of pawpaw bnshes passed, they found 
themselves on a triangnlar space that jntted 
out boldly into the sky while the river, some 
two hundred feet below, swept in a majestic 
cnrve between high banks of vivid green. 

knew yon’d like it,” she declared, happy 
in his enthusiasm. On the extreme corner of 
the blnff rested a hnge flat rock. ^ We’ll perch 
ourselves np there,” she said, ‘^and as mnch of 
the world as we can see will belong to jnst yon 
and me. I’ve climbed np there when I was 
all by myself, bnt — well, of course I onghtn’t 
to mind you, bnt yon haven’t been a member 
of the family so very long. I mnst call for 
help.” 

He pnt his hand under her elbow. “Seems 
awfully high, all of a sudden,” she murmured. 
“You ridiculous boy, of course you’ve got to 
take me in your arms and just set me up 
there. Oh, oh, I wish you could see yourself 
blushing. Come on and do it.” 

As he lifted her from the ground, such a 
wave of supreme gladness swept over him, he 
stood very still as if to preserve his footing 
against the sea threatening to overwhelm him. 
Lucia expected every instant to be seated up- 
on the rock, but made no movement of im- 


The Picture on the Wall 


161 


patience. ‘^How strong you are!’^ she mur- 
mured, nestling close. 

He had never before held his arms about 
her, he never expected to hold them about her 
again. He loved her with all his virile 
strength, and she, not understanding herself, 
was hungering for his love. So for a few 
moments he remained very still while the level 
rays of the sun turned the surface of the gray 
rock to a shield of beaten gold. It rushed 
over him that it was best to tell her all. The 
thought, which hovered on the limits of re- 
solve, shook him physically so that she felt his 
tremor. What would she say when he exclaim- 
ed, “Lucia, I am not your brother. I am only 
— ^your lover!” 

Ah, but he was more than that; not only 
her lover but an imposter, a supplanter, a pre- 
tender, a fugitive from justice! 

She sighed with profound content, “You are 
glad to have your little sister!” 

He placed her upon the rock, then climbed 
beside her. They were caught in the flood of 
light that was passing from the twilight world 
into the glowing sky. He turned his back to 
the river, still tense with the heart-cry he had 
almost uttered, still shaken from the escape of 
not having uttered it. There had fallen be- 
tween their usual selves one of those brief rare 
interruptions that cut across ordinary hap- 
penings and modes of thought giving a fleeting 
glimpse of the rich warm blood that throbs 
beneath life’s casual surface. Its symbol he 
found in the splendor on her face, the glory 
of her hair. Such an experience, coming un- 
aware, opens up amazing vistas of joy which, 
before they can be defined, fade out, leaving no 
jewel of all the riches showered in one’s lap 
except the pearl of memory. 


162 


The Picture on the Wall 


To Lucia, it was no descent from the heights 
of the sublime to demand an account of John^s 
recent adventures. He was to her a thousand 
times more interesting than the river and the 
distant hills, and all he could say would seem 
in harmony with their May-time loveliness. 

But with his first words — “I started for St. 
Louis — ” John felt that he had dropped in an 
elevator to the basement of a skyscraper. 

^^That was your home after you ran away 
from New Orleans,’^ she commented. ‘‘I sup- 
pose your detective-friend lives there.’’ 

^‘As soon as I described the robbery, he 
knew who had done it,” John went on, sketchi- 
ly. “It happened to be somebody I know — 
I’ve been thrown with all sorts of crooks, 
Lncia. It wouldn’t do for him to see me, or 
he’d recognize me and skip out with the jew- 
els. So I rented a room in a hard part of the 
city, and stocked up with food as if in a state 
of siege. At last my man came with the jew- 
elry and here I am. Not much of a story, you 
see.” 

“Not much, as you tell it,” she smiled arch- 
ly. “But why have you left out all about 
Bettie?” 

He gasped and turned pale. “Bettie?” he 
faltered, marvelling how she could possibly 
have known anything about his trip. Then 
he tried to laugh. 

“It’s no use, John,” she said grimly. “I’ll 
admit I made a guess in the dark. You have 
spoken of Bettie as a river-girl ; and St. Louis 
is a river-town. And your guilty look was as 
good as plain admission. You saw your friend 
Bettie!” 

“Well, yes, certainly — ” his attempt to speak 
indifferently only ended by giving a touch of 


The Picture on the Wall 


163 


stiffness to his manner. “I saw several of my 
old friends.’^ 

‘‘Never mind about the others. Tell me 
about Bettie. Was she barefooted on the riv- 
er-beach? Was she as pretty as ever?’^ She 
was leaning forward to look into his eyes, and 
he was affecting a laugh too precise for har- 
mony. 

He turned at bay. “She wasn’t a tenth as 
pretty as you were when you were barefooted 
the night of the robbery.” 

Lucia shrugged with absolute indifference 
about her own appearance. “But I don’t count. 
My barefootedness is all in the family. If I 
were as ugly as could be, you’d be bound to 
love me just the same. Do tell me about Bet-., 
tie.” In her teasing laughter he found some- 
thing hard and sharp, very discomfiting. 

“I’ve nothing to tell. Except that she’s a 
mighty plucky girl ; and as true a friend as a 
fellow could have.” 

“Did you kiss her, John? — when you said 
good-by?” She was still smiling with that un- 
sympathetic hard brightness in the blue of her 
eyes. “Or ever?” 

He felt that she was pressing an unfair ad- 
vantage and his mouth began to show grim 
lines. “Yes,” he said. 

Despite her air of raillery she had been seri- 
ous. “Oh, John!” reproach rang in her tones. 
“How could you!” 

“You don’t understand. It isn’t as if some 
one should kiss you. It forms no epoch in 
Bettie’s life when she is kissed. It isn’t any- 
thing except — ‘Hello!” 

Tears showed in the blue and Lucia winked 
hard to keep them back. “Then — if it didn’t 
mean anything, why did you ? And how 
could you want to?” 


164 


The Picture on the Wall 


^Wou^re not dealing fair with me, Lucia. 
You^ve led me along with a smile that didn’t 
mean anything, and now you pounce upon me 
just because I’m in a corner.” 

“If it comes to a question of fairness — 
Lucia tilted up her chin — “I don’t think you 
were fair to poor Bettie, if you didn’t mean 
anything; or fair to yourself.” 

“I don’t mind cheating myself occasional- 
ly. Of course you have been kissed by Eugene 
Ware; but now that the engagement’s broken 
it proves that that didn’t mean anything ei- 
ther. And while we’re still on the question of 
fairness,” he added illogically, “that doesn’t 
seem fair to me.” 

“To you?” she opened her eyes very wide. 

“Yes,” he returned with dignity; “to me, as 
your brother.” 

She shrugged and said dryly, “I think we’d 
better go home. Alice will be wondering what 
has become of us. And it will be getting dark. 
Anyway — ” she waved impatiently at the riv- 
er-view — “all that is spoiled.” 

“Very well,” he agreed with equal dryness. 
He jumped from the rock with as much gravi- 
ty as the scramble permitted and waited for 
her; but as he upheld his arms, all clouds van- 
ished. That there had been clouds, made her 
hands upon his shoulders inexpressildy dear. 
And when she whispered, “Did we almost 
quarrel?” he denied it stoutly. 

“Here’s a bargain,” she breathed rapidly 
when he had placed her upon the ground. 
“You shall kiss away Eugene Ware. And 
when you have — ” she held up her adorable 
mouth to him while the smiles chased each 
other across her dimpling face, “I’ll kiss away 
Bettie from your lips forever and ever.” 

With thought suspended, he bent toward her 


The Picture on the Wall 


165 


radiant loveliness like a tree bowed in a strong 
wind which though stout of heart and fibre 
cannot but yield to the breath of nature’s pas- 
sion. But with the fragrant breath of Lucia 
touching his cheek he became less tree than 
man and caught himself and did what he could 
to cover his retreat by patting her face gently. 

‘We’ll take all that for granted,” he said, 
and turned brusquely to lead the way back 
through the woods. 

“I do believe you’re angry still!” she com- 
plained plaintively. 

“Angry? I? With you? If you knew my 
feelings, my dear, you’d find them — well, quite 
the reverse of angry.” But he kept in the 
lead to the automobile. 

“Sometimes you puzzle me,” Lucia sighed 
as they entered the yard, after leaving the car 
in the Warring garage. “For a boy so full 
of life, you seem at times remarkably unre- 
sponsive. Sometimes almost — almost insen- 
sible.” 

“Yes,” he responded vaguely,” at times I’m 
like that. I believe I’ll not go into the house 
just yet. Don’t wait for me. I’ll stroll about 
the garden — and try to find myself.” 

She suggested eagerly, “Maybe it would help 
you to find yourself if I went with you.” 

“It wouldn’t.” His decision was prompt. 
“I seem less myself when I’m with you.” 

She darted away, but stopped abruptly at 
the top of the porch steps to look down upon 
him as he paused in the path. Out of the dusk 
her hair burned with living light and the 
whiteness of her skin quivered against the 
darkened interior of the hall like the beckon- 
ing of a will-o’-the-wisp to fairyland. “John: 
really and truly — ^you don’t care for that Bet- 
tie-girl ?” 


166 


The Picture on the Wall 


“Not in the way yon mean.’’ 

“Then it isn’t about her that you want to 
go strolling and meditating in the garden?’^ 

He could not keep back a smile. “It is oth- 
erwise,” he confessed. Then earnestly, “But 
I want you to think well of her ; she’s an aw- 
fully fine girl.” 

“I’ll think well of her if you don’t think too 
much of her yourself. I shall never think well 
of anybody who takes you away from me, 
John. It seems dreadful to say it, but I know 
it’s true. I’m never going to marry, and I 
want to keep you with me, always.” 

“I shall stay with you just as long as you’ll 
let me. Bun upstairs and look after Alice. 
We ought to be happy while Glaxton is away. 
You are happy aren’t you, Lucia?” he added 
wistfully. 

She answered a little uncertainly, “I ought 
to be. As you suggest, all the conditions are 
favorable for happiness. But I don’t know. 
I feel queer, somehow ; and old. As if I’d lost 
something out of life, something important, 
and can’t find it, and don’t even know what it 
is. Did you ever feel old, John? It’s like a 
cold wind blowing on you.” 

She laughed out. “But what nonsense I’m 
talking!” She waved her hand and danced 
through the doorway, but when he was lost 
from sight, slipped into a room to be alone. 
Alice felt at home; she could look out for 
herself. 

John plunged into the garden, grimly resolv- 
ed upon leaving to Alice Klade a free field. 
Now if ever, he supposed, she would tell Lucia 
the truth about the Troost Avenue episode. 
In his state of harried suspense he sought di- 
version by examining the spot where he had 
buried the box of banknotes. Apparently it 


The Picture on the Wall 167 

had not been visited since its concealment in 
the shrubbery. Diverting his way to the main 
path he reached the summerhouse before aware 
of subdued voices issuing from its obscurity. 

He peered in and there were dismayed gasps 
from two figures seated on the rustic bench. 
^‘Virgie and Alice!’’ he exclaimed, gazing in- 
tently through the gloom, and subtly aware of 
their embarrassment. ‘^May I come in?” 

There was no response. 

“I’m quite sure I can give the countersign,” 
he went on recklessly; it’s John Lyle Warring. 
Yes, I am the subject of your confidences.” He 
stepped over the threshold with a laugh that 
sounded gay. 

“I happen to be pretty well informed on that 
theme myself,” he continued. “Permit me to 
place all the facts at your disposal.” 


CHAPTER XXII 

SECRETS 

Virgie Abbottsfleld and Alice Klade were 
standing at one of the upper windows when 
Lucia and John went away in the automobile 
to the river bluff. Alice murmured, ‘‘How 
proud she is of her brother !” 

Virgie responded restrainedly, “Yes, she is 
devoted to him.’’ 

Alice longed to be alone that she might ad- 
just her mind to the amazing discovery that the 
recovered brother was her Polite Burglar, 
but Mrs. Abbottsfleld would not let her off 
from extensive inquiries about the best fam- 
ilies of Kansas City. Apparently unaware of 
the volcano smouldering under their feet, Mrs. 
Abbottsfleld preserved her unimpeachable air 
of gentility while asking about people whose 
only claim to her interest was that they knew 
what’s what and, according to the daily press, 
functioned fashionably. 

Virgie slipped away. Being Mrs. Abbotts- 
fleld’s daughter, she could do that. Alice, 
held in the toils, became so dry that her mono- 
syllabic flllers rattled in her throat. 

The telephone rescued her. The Rev. Harry 
Tredmill was asking for her flrst evening in 
Lagville. She promised it eagerly hoping from 
him to get some light on what should be done, 
then fled to the garden. 

“I was hoping you would come,” Virgie 
greeted her from the summerhouse, “for I’ve 
something important to say to you.” 

Alice slowly took her place beside the shad- 

168 


The Picture on the Wall 


169 


owy figure. There had never been any inti- 
macy between these two but they felt nothing 
against each other; theirs was that neutral 
state of mind wherein increased frankness is 
easier attained than in passionate friendship 
colored by preconceived partialities. 

Alice confided gravely, ‘‘And I, too, have 
something important on my mind.’’ Suddenly 
she was glad not to be left alone to think it 
out. At the same time she was dimly aware 
of an unreasonable satisfaction in Virgie’s 
homeliness. Some ugly girls are at times, 
thanks to the adventitious aid of pretty gowns 
or altered coiffures, almost not ugly, just as 
a pretty girl like Alice may appear disconcert- 
ingly plain. Such manifestations leave one’s 
mind unprepared for the future. But Virgie 
was always ugly, no matter what she did about 
it or did not do, and Alice, in the midst of 
her perplexity found in this triumphant qual- 
ity a heartening permanency that promised 
help. 

For a time neither spoke. It was hard to 
put into words the thoughts crouching timid 
and afraid in their brains. Alice tried to get 
further into the matter by making the same 
start that she had tried without success: 
“How proud Lucia is of her brother!” 

Virgie with her “perfectly devoted 1” refused 
to carry her a step into the mystery. 

“Of course,” Alice spoke casually, “Lucia 
wrote me all about her brother’s being found. 
Did you see the baby-things he brought to 
prove his identity?” 

“Oh, yes, and the letters. He had the let- 
ters his father wrote the awful creature that 
kidnapped him.” 

“Yes, Lucia said so.” 

Virgie spoke with an air of finality. “Those 


170 


The Picture on the Wall 


things can’t be denied. But they don’t mean 
so much to me. It’s his tone of voice and his 
movements. He speaks and moves just as his 
father does.” 

‘^Did he from the first? That might come 
from association.” 

^‘But, anyway, his face shows the relation- 
ship.” 

“That’s what Lucia said. She wrote that 
he’s the very image of the picture on the wall 
in the reception-hall. No, in the front parlor, 
it was. Maybe so. I haven’t examined the pic- 
ture lately. But I must confess I don’t see 
any of the Warring traits in — in this one.” 

“The resemblance grows upon one,” Virgie 
remarked. “He looks more like that picture 
than I thought he did.” 

“Oh, I understand that there’s no question 
of the kinship.” Then she deflected: “You 
had something to tell me?” 

“Yes; and you, to tell me.” 

Alice temporized. “Ye-es. But what I 
have to tell is so big — so awful, in a way, 
though on getting closer to it this afternoon 
it has seemed to thin down somewhat . . . 
But I hardly know whether to explain or not. 
You see, I’m so perfectly devoted to Lucia. . . 
I wouldn’t do anything in the world to make 
her miserable — ” She stopped. 

“I may as well tell you,” Virgie offered, “that 
I noticed something strange in the way you 
greeted John at the station, so I know that 
what is on your mind is all about him.” 

Silence. 

“Lucia is my friend, too, an older friend 
than she is of yours. I am worried, as you are 
worried. I wouldn’t make her unhappy for 
worlds, but if I tell what’s on my mind it 


The Picture on the Wall 


171 


would — it — She let her voice trail off into 
silence. 

Alice inquired cautiously, “What does it be- 
gin with? I mean, the thing you know or 
suspect about John; what letter does it begin 
with? I suppose not by any chance a 

“I was thinking of an ’’ Virgie whispered, 
“but it could be started with a 

“And does it end with a y ?’’ 

“It might end with a ‘y.’ ’’ 

“Good gracious I how dreadful ! I hope it is 
something about me?’^ 

“But it isn’t,’’ Virgie protested, bewildered, 
“it has nothing whatever to do with you.” 

“Good gradom! Then it’s another occa- 
sion. How perfectly moful! Lucia will have 
to know, sooner or later. If it’s a JmMt with 
him. ...” 

It was then that John showed himself in 
the doorway of the summerhouse. Taking for 
granted that Alice had either told about the 
housebreaking in Kansas City or was about to 
do so, he decided to throw himself upon their 
mercy by telling how his uncle had gotten him 
in his power and how, in order to keep his 
place in the eating house until he could launch 
out for himself, he had gone through the per- 
functory motions of a house-breaker. So he 
related all just as it had happened, ending 
with the explanation, 

“Of course until I came to this house I al- 
ways believed that man to be my uncle. He 
called me his nephew, and I had no reason to 
doubt it.” All mention of his mother was 
omitted. 

“But I know I couldn’t really be his nephew 
and at the same time Lucia’s brother. 
One must choose between the two. All the 
same, I can’t come out into the open and 


172 


The Picture on the Wall 


make a clean breast of everything, because, 
Alice, you see I really did break into your 
house, and I could never make the police be- 
lieve I had no evil intentions. They might ad- 
mit that I am now John Lyle Warring; but 
that wouldn’t affect what I did when I was 
supposed to be simply the nephew of the res- 
taurant proprietor. 

“Now that you know who I am, of course, 
Alice, you wouldn’t, for Lucia’s sake, press the 
suit against me, or appear as a witness — ” 

“John!” she protested, greatly distressed. 

“But the disgrace of the thing would be a ter- 
rible blow to her and her father. I wouldn’t 
have them know about it for worlds. I’m not 
asking secrecy for my sake. If I know my 
heart, I’m thinking only of their happiness. 
The publicity of the thing would kill him — Lu- 
cia’s father; his heart would fail. I didn’t 
feel guilty when I went to Troost Avenue be- 
cause I knew I’d take nothing away with me. 
I wish my uncle — as I thought him — had 
shown himself in his true light when for months 
he nursed me through sickness, but perhaps he 
was getting me well in order to use me. Be- 
fore I came here and learned what it is to live, 
he rather had me under his thumb. I was 
afraid of him. I wanted to break away, but 
somehow lacked the incentive to put up the 
necessary fight. Now, it’s different. I can 
hardly see myself as I used to be. If my moth- 
er had lived — I’d have broken away — ” 

“Your mother!” Alice echoed, her sympa- 
thies going out to him unrestrainedly. “But 
Lucia’s mother died years ago. She was only 
ten years old. And you couldn’t possibly re- 
member her.” 

“I mean — ” But when he tried to say, “The 
woman I supposed to be my mother,” the words 


The Picture on the Wall 173 

would not come. He said, well — you un- 

derstand.” 

Virgie breathed a deep sigh of relief. “How 
easy youVe made it for us!” she exclaimed 
gratefully. “How everything has brightened 
up! Pve been desperately worried ever since 
the night of the robbery — or burglary — ” 

She laughed aloud. “You can spell it with 
an ‘R’ or a ‘B.’ When Lucia screamed out her 
warning I rushed to the back window and saw 
you and an awful man holding a conference 
in the yard as if you had entered into a con- 
spiracy against us. I knew at once it must be 
somebody from your former scenes of life.” 

“I was telling him never to dare set foot 
in the place again.” 

“Yes. And now I knoAV he must have been 
the man you believed to be jmur uncle. Your 
description fits him exactly.” 

“That^s the man. Yes, I certainly believed 
him to be my uncle! But it didn’t occur to me 
you were looking on. No wonder you had a 
headache. But you didn’t tell Lucia! Good 
girl!” He patted her arm. “Is it all right 
now ?” 

She breathed a deeper sigh. “It’s wonder- 
ful. I feel a different girl. I suppose you 
went to Kansas City — not to St. Louis at all — 
and found the jewelry in that wretch’s hiding- 
place?” 

“A simple turn of the wrist. But you won’t 
feel that Lucia should know?” 

Virgie exclaimed, “We won’t tell a soul — will 
we, Alice? Oh, John, it’s so good to have back 
my old feeling for you !” 

He squeezed her hand. 

Alice refiected, “But the story would interest 
Lucia amazingly.” 

“I’ll interest Lucia some other way,” John 


174 


The Picture on the Wall 


promised. ^^Come, girls, join hands and swear 
to keep mum.” Already he held Virgie’s in 
his right hand ; he took Alice’s hand in his left. 
^^Now, all together: Mum-mum-mum!” 

Easily swayed by his bounding spirits, they 
murmured in unison, ^‘Mum-mum-mum !” 

^^It’s exactly as if our mouths were full of 
something good to eat!” Alice laughed. 

John exclaimed, “Let’s get ’em full of some- 
thing good! I’ll call Lucia, and we’ll all run 
off to the ice-cream parlor.” 

“But supper’s nearly ready,” Virgie object- 
ed; “what would mother say?” 

“We’re not afraid of anybody but Cousin 
Glaxton,” John declared gaily, “and he’s from 
home.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 

THE ENEMY^S RETURN 

Th© next few days were bright with such 
trivial happenings and casual talk as apparent- 
ly lead not one step into the future, as if Time 
were giving the joy of being alive without ex- 
acting increase of age as recompense. The 
young people were together from morning till 
night, either at the Warring house or away ou 
picnic excursions. They were so gay that Mrs. 
Abbottsfield’s stiff correctness was not per- 
mitted for a moment to go limp; and once, Lu- 
cia, not knowing what would become of them 
without some check, grabbed John by one hand 
and Alice by the other — Alice, of course, had 
the Rev. Mr. Tredmill in charge — and rushed 
the line up to Virgie’s mother, exclaiming, 

^‘Aunt Hildegarde! Tell us about the best 
families 

And Virgie kept so bright over the recovery 
of her admiration for John that her mother 
seldom thought to tell her to hold herself 
straight. 

John had the genius of extracting merriment 
out of the passing moments as easily as the 
magicians in the stories used to get gold from 
sunbeams, and though his jokes might sound 
flat if repeated out of their settings, at the time 
of perpetration they forced peals of laughter. 
One really ached after a day with him. 

He could even make you laugh yourself al- 
most ill over impending misfortune as when, 
for example, they were flve miles up the river 
at 7 p. m. and suddenly Tredmill remembered 

176 


176 


The Picture on the Wall 


that it was Wednesday (fancy forgetting that 
it was Wednesday!) and his prayer-meeting 
was expected to begin at 7 :30. In the mad 
rush to town John pictured the consternation 
on the faces of the old faithful Wednesday 
night guard should their captain fail to ap- 
pear at stroke of bell; and uttered aphorisms 
not to be recalled during the hour of devotions. 

One might well have imagined that of the 
five John was by far freest of care, and during 
much of the time he was able to banish uneasy 
speculations concerning Blearstead. But there 
came moments when his heart was as heavy as 
lead for he knew that the period of his se- 
curity must be brief. 

One afternoon he took a long walk in the 
country to put his thoughts in order, visiting 
the cattle-shed where he had changed his 
clothes on his fiight from Kansas City, and af- 
ter that, the rock at the margin of the bluff 
where he had not kissed Lucia. Naturally Lu- 
cia was supreme in all his meditations, and 
when he went back in the dusk, he slipped into 
the house very quietly, enjoying to the full the 
consciousness of her near presence, yet shrink- 
ing from meeting her face to face. The lights 
were on, and as he closed the front door behind 
him, he fancied Lucia’s eyes must read on his 
face that which she should never know. How 
could it be otherwise when all his thoughts and 
emotions were steeped in love of her? 

From this dreamy mood he was startled at 
hearing the authoritative voice of Edgar Glax- 
ton: ^‘Why are you here, sir?” 

For an instant John fancied himself ad- 
dressed though the walls separated him from 
the returned lawyer. Had his identity been 
laid bare? It would be difficult to explain 
satisfactorily just why he was there! 


The Picture on the Wall 


177 


But almost at once he was set right by hear- 
ing the voice of Tredmill in reponse: “I am 
here to call on Miss Klade.” The tone was 
dignified, neither shrinking nor assertive. 

^Wou will leave at once, sir.’^ Glaxton^s 
voice did not rise, but its quality grew impell- 
ing. 

Tredmill answered, ‘^Miss Klade will receive 
me. I am expected.^^ 

^^As I have told you repeatedly,’’ Glaxton 
said, ‘^and as a less obtuse man must have 
known without the telling, your presence in 
this house is an affront to the master of it. 
You must go without further words, or force 
will be employed.” 

John started toward the door of the front 
room, but checked himself as he heard Tred- 
mill’s calm rejoinder, ^‘Then I shall meet force 
with force.” 

^‘Oh, I see!” Glaxton sneered, suddenly los- 
ing his effect of quiet and irresistible power, 
as he permitted himself to be swayed by per- 
sonal enmity: ^^you are a man who denounces 
other people for their weaknesses while fight- 
ing with their weapons. What has become of 
your doctrine of turning the other cheek?” 

^‘Should you smite me upon the cheek,” Tred- 
mill explained, ^G’d knock you down. But hav- 
ing defended myself, I should hold no grudge 
against you. I’d try to meet you afterwards 
as if the thing hadn’t happened. I’d turn to 
you, as it were, my other cheek. And I fancy 
you would not care to repeat your offense. 
The doctrine of turning the other cheek means, 
to my mind, all absence of rancor and ven- 
geance, and the giving of the aggressor after- 
wards a fair chance of pursuing kindlier and 
more peaceful ways.” 

The fearlessness of Tredmill’s manner an- 


178 


The Picture on the Wall 


gered Glaxton beyond prudence. He turned 
to a third man whose presence John had not 
suspected. ^^Simmons, put this gentleman out 
the door.’’ 

John waited no longer. He found the great 
hulking man-servant advancing with clenched 
fists upon the minister while his master looked 
on darkly. ^‘Leave the room this moment,” 
John ordered Simmons, ‘^or I’ll break all the 
important bones in your body.” 

The man slunk away like a whipped cur. 

John turned upon Glaxton. ^‘So you’ve 
come back! You seem to have fallen prey to 
the singular delusion that this is your house. 
At the risk of being disagreeable I must remind 
you that you are here wholly upon sufferance. 
Brother Tredmill I am, as always, delighted 
to see you. Sit down. Does Alice know you’ve 
come?” 

“Lucia came to tell me she would be down 
directly.” Tredmill seated himself. 

Glaxton’s face no longer betrayed anger. 
What the delicately-formed features spoke, 
John could not translate. “You have defied 
me from the first — ” His tone was low and 
smooth — “and if it were only a contest be- 
tween us two, I should willingly accept your 
challenge.” He leaned with back to the wall 
and the light was full upon him, yet even so 
his face looked singularly dark. “As you are 
aware, however, I should have you at an im- 
mense disadvantage. With the police after 
you for breaking into the Klade house and 
with the man you called uncle as your accom- 
plice in stripping this place of its jewelry, a 
single word from me would put irons on your 
wrists.” 

The minister laughed scornfully at what he 
regarded as preposterous accusations. “The 


The Picture on the Wall 


179 


Klade house!’’ he echoed. ^Terhaps you are 
insinuating that my friend is the Polite Bur- 
glar, who terrified Miss Klade in her Troost 
Avenue home!” 

mean precisely that. Virgie had the whole 
confession from John in the summerhouse and 
Virgie who always confides everything in me 
ran to me the moment I came home to tell 
what John imagined she would preserve as a 
secret. If you doubt my words — supposing 
John has the hardihood to deny their truth — 
ask Virgie; or better, ask Miss Klade herself; 
for when she stepped from the train, the mo- 
ment she saw John, she recognized him as her 
midnight visitor. So at least Virgie tells me. 
Virgie and her mother were there with the car 
and both observed Miss Klade’s air of petri- 
faction. However, Virgie says John made a 
clean breast of it and told her and Miss Klade 
the story of his life, begging them at the same 
time not to tell of his burglarious habits to 
Lucia.” 

John was speechless, not from his instinct of 
danger, or because he greatly minded Tred- 
mill’s knowing the truth, but from the sick- 
ening realization that he had been betrayed by 
his friend. Tredmill waited to hear the 
charges repudiated, but intense silence settled 
upon the room. 

Presently Glaxton resumed in measured 
tones, always looking John full in the face: 
^^But I shall not use this knowledge which Vir- 
gie has provided me with, unless I am driven 
to extremity, for there is somebody else to be 
considered. By being driven to extremity, I 
mean finding that you are in any way trying to 
dislodge me from this house. And by some- 
body else, I mean your father. From consid- 
eration of your father I shall not seek out this 


180 The Picture on the Wall 

uncle, so-called, and show him up to the world. 
I realized that you were raised to think him 
your relative, and it was human nature for you 
to fall into his evil practices. Nevertheless I 
think I am justified, in view of the facts I 
hold, in expecting from you a less antagonistic 
attitude. I shall not, if you leave me alone, 
pry into your past life, on your father^s ac- 
count. For I must warn you, my poor young 
man, that your father’s condition is most pre- 
carious.” 

John started toward him, forgetting himself. 
^^Have you seen my father?” his manner was 
threatening. “Did you follow him? Have 
you interfered in his plans?” 

“The least excitement affects his heart most 
distressingly.” 

“His health need not concern you. While 
you were away, he grew so strong and, as every- 
body tells me, so different in spirit and hope- 
fulness that I know you are bad medicine for 
him.” 

“Whatever strength he gained,” Glaxton 
said gloomily, “he lost during this ill-advised 
business trip. I have known all along that he 
was unable to attend to his affairs. That is 
why he has insisted on keeping me by him.” 

“Where did you see him, and where have you 
left him?” John interrupted. 

“He is very weak ; I think he may never leave 
home again. As soon as I learned of his rash 
resolve to attend to business unaided I knew 
how it would be. In simple mercy I hurried 
after him — ” 

“Mercy!” John mocked. “What mercy is 
there in you?” 

Glaxton slightly smiled. “He is in his room 
upstairs, very, very weak.” 

John turned to Tredmill unable to hide his 


The Picture on the Wall 


181 


agitation. must go to him at once. An- 
other time I’ll explain everything about the 
Troost Avenue business.” 

Glaxton objected peremptorily. “If you will 
pardon me — ” 

John brushed past him and ran up the stairs. 

Glaxton called after him, to all appearances 
with real solicitude: “Gently, John, gently! 
I beg of you to remember his heart.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 

GLAXTON^S THREAT 

Glaxton’s warning was not without effect, 
and John’s step was hardly audible as he pass- 
ed through his “father’s” door. He found him 
dressed, lying upon the bed, and was greatly 
shocked by his changed face. Its animation 
was gone. Lines were cut deep in the pallid 
skin exaggerating the effect of age. Hearing 
the click of the latch his head turned languid- 
ly on the pillow without a lightening of the 
features. 

“What happened?” John brought out with 
fierce intensity. “What has he done to you?” 

“I can’t talk,” Mr. Warring murmured. “I 
can’t collect my thoughts. It sets my heart 
fluttering to try. Another time — another 
time.” 

John bent over him. “When was it you lost 
your grip on yourself? Wasn’t it after Glax- 
ton hunted you down? I’ll drive him from 
the premises if it’s the last thing I ever do.” 

Mr. Warring cried in distress, “But no, no! 
That would mean my death. Only he knows 
how to relieve my distress. Nobody but your 
Cousin Glaxton knows how to regulate my 
heart. I’d die without him. You distress me, 
John, by any such suggestion.” He breathed 
rapidly, laboriously. 

The door opened, and Glaxton came quietly 
into the room. He spoke soothingly to Mr. 
Warring: “Now that you have greeted your 
son, I wonder if you hadn’t better be very 
quiet for the remainder of the day.” 

182 


The Picture on the Wall 


183 


^^Oh, yes — ^yes,” the invalid whispered. 
“That is what I need; quiet, perfect quiet — 
not to think or talk or feel the jar of move- 
ments.” Languidly he reached out to touch 
John^s hand. “It was glorious while it lasted. 
But my heart is so uncertain — Perfect quiet- 
ness, that is all I need.” 

John looked at Glaxton: “Then come with 
me.” 

Glaxton smiled faintly and asked the pros- 
trate man, “Can you do without me now? 
Perhaps you would like to try it without my 
especial medicine?” 

Into the invalid’s voice crept a note of irri- 
tation, if not of alarm : “But I must have that 
medicine. You know I must have it, and soon. 
Run along John, for the present — just for the 
present; I must have absolute quiet.” 

Glaxton with slow deliberation seated him- 
self at the bedside. John with clenched teeth 
went away promising himself to solve the mys- 
tery of the lawyer’s influence over the million- 
aire. But once in the hall, another thought 
presented itself. He turned down the side cor- 
ridor to Virgie’s door. 

In answer to his knock, Mrs. Abbottsfield 
looked out inquiringly. 

“I want to speak to Virgie a moment.” His 
tone was colorless. 

Virgie came out with slow step and he clos- 
ed the door after her that they might stand 
alone in the corridor. Although it was not 
very light he could see that her eyes were red 
from weeping. “When did Glaxton bring him 
home?” he asked in subdued accents. 

She spoke in the faint voice of one who has 
been giving way to violent emotions: “About 
three hours ago — just after you started away 
on your walk.” 


184 


The Picture on the Wall 


short a time,” he let his bitterness 
sound forth, ‘Tor him to get from you my 
secret ! 

“Yes,” she said faintly. “Is that all, John? 
“I’ll go back to mother.” 

“Surely it is enough!” he returned sternly. 
Then he softened. “But I didn’t ask you out 
here to listen to reproaches. I just wanted to 
say that I’ve had experience of my own in try- 
ing to keep facts from Glaxton. You couldn’t 
hold it back from him. I wanted you to know 
that I haven’t forgotten you’re my friend, and 
I'm going to be your friend till Chapter the 
Last. That was all, dear Virgie. Now you 
can run along.” 

She burst into tears. “You’re breaking my 
heart a second time,” she sobbed. “Yes, he 
forced it out of me. Oh, John, I’m not free — 
he has a hold over me. I can’t explain. You’d 
not blame me if you knew everything. I had 
to tell him — he found out there was some- 
thing, and then I had to tell what it was. 
If I hadn’t — but I was forced. He has a hold 
over me.” 

“Don’t cry, dear girl. I’m going to break 
his hold. All the same, I’d like to know what 
secret he has of yours to make you give him 
my secret.” 

“I can never tell that to any one, never. 
But if you knew, you’d say I did right.” 

“Would I? Then on the strength of that as- 
surance, I’ll say you did right to tell about 
me. I can’t understand it, but I’ll say you 
did right. I’m going to take your hand in the 
dark — ” He reached for it. 

She burst into fresh tears. She gasped, 
“You’ll never regret trusting me.” 

“Am I not sure of that? Well, I should say 


The Picture on the Wall 


185 


so! All the same, I could do for Glaxton if I 
knew what secret of yours he is holding.” 

^‘Yes, you could. But yet I can’t explain.” 

‘‘But can you trust him to keep your secret 
even after he has forced mine from you as the 
price for silence?” 

“He’ll keep the secret for his own sake. To 
help him make his plans. You can’t trust Mr. 
Glaxton unless his self-interest is on your 
side.” 

Hearing a footstep in the main hall, she 
darted into her room and John retreated, puz- 
zling over his best course of action. 

It was Simmons they had overheard. As if 
unaware of his shadowy hovering, John walk- 
ed to the head of the staircase to go down to 
Tredmill. Whether Simmons had received or- 
ders from his master or had determined upon 
personal vengeance never appeared. Sudden- 
ly he made a violent forward rush, then leapt 
straight into the air to fall catlike upon the 
young man’s neck. The movement of his long 
legs and lithe body as it shot through space 
with the swiftness of the wind was essentially 
feline. 

John, not anticipating danger before it was 
upon him, had no chance to jump to one side. 
He therefore fell flat to the floor causing Sim- 
mons to miss his hold upon his collar. The 
lean body, overbalanced, sought equilibrium 
by means of the far reach of the arms, but be- 
fore the bony hands could touch the floor John 
started to one knee, hurling the giant frame 
down the stairs. 

It reached the floor of the reception hall 
with a crash and rolled up against the front 
door with a hollow thud that jarred the win- 
dows. 

Glaxton ran out of Mr. Warring’s bedroom 


186 


The Picture on the Wall 


and glared at John who was rearran^ng his 
tie somewhat breathlessly. “You’ll kill your 
father!” he grated. 

John answered grimly, “I’ll kill Simmons 
first.” 

Tredmill, seeing from the parlor door that 
the man did not rise, hurried to his assistance, 
but Simmons, groaning dismally, gave him a 
surly curse and, finding his bones unbroken, 
crept away. 

“Oh,” cried Lucia, rushing into the down- 
stairs hall from the back parlor, “what is it?” 

John started down the stairs, explaining 
serenely, “Brother Tredmill is growing im- 
patient for Alice to finish her primping. If 
she keeps him waiting much longer, I’m afraid 
he’ll pull down the house.” 

“One moment, please,” Glaxton called to 
John. He came closer and said guardedly, 
while Lucia followed Tredmill into the front 
room, “You are going to try to drive me away. 
Now mark what I say: At your first move 
against me, I’ll sift out all your past and that 
of the wretch you believed to be your uncle. 
I’ll publish you to the world. I dare say I’ll 
find much more than the fact that for a night 
you played the burglar. Treat me as a gentle- 
man, John, and I’ll let you pass as one. For 
your father’s sake. I’m going to leave it to 
you to make the next move. But the moment 
I find that it’s a move against me — ” he gave 
him a darkly ominous look — “I’ll forget that 
you are your father’s son.” 


CHAPTER XXV 

A SECRET CONFERENCE 

With Glaxton in the house and Mr. War- 
ring a helpless invalid, gayety vanished. Life 
became as staid and discreetly regulated as 
Mrs. Abbottsfield’s manner. John felt that the 
time had come for him to disappear from Lag- 
ville. The baffled police no longer looked for 
him in this direction — had, possibly, let him 
slip from mind. 

Glaxton would let him go without pursuit ; 
would, if necessary, aid him in slipping away. 
The lawyer by his air of secret understanding 
seemed always reminding him of a league be- 
tween them : if John left him alone, he would 
not investigate his past, which would necessa- 
rily implicate his future. It was, therefore, a 
period of safety for John; but he regarded it 
as safety purely for flight; he could see in 
it no permanency. Even if he could have rec- 
onciled himself to Glaxton’s domination. John 
knew Blearstead too well not to anticipate 
at a day not remote an attempt to wreck him, 
out of revenge. This was a danger that grew 
more menacing as the days passed. 

Yet he had not the heart to sever his life 
from Lucians. His going would instantly be- 
tray him as the imposter and when he tried to 
picture how Lucia would be affected by the 
news, he stood appalled. He drew the scene 
of the revelation — Mrs. Abbottsfield’s terror; 
Virgie^s amazement; Alice’s conviction that, 
after all, the robbery had been of evil intent; 
Lucia, all crushed and bleeding; and Mr. War- 

187 


188 


The Picture on the Wall 


ring, perhaps losing his feeble hold upon ex- 
istence. He found himself caught in those 
deeper currents of life which not long ago had 
been unknown to him; he could neither go nor 
stay. 

There was more in his grappling for salva- 
tion than the wrecking of Lucia’s faith and the 
losing of her love. What was this mysteri- 
ous force exerted by Glaxton upon the mil- 
lionaire? Half a dozen times a day, he would 
slip to the sick room without noise as much to 
elude Glaxton as to avoid jarring the sick 
man’s nerves. But if Glaxton was not always 
there, Simmons was hovering about, fearing 
John’s frown but fearing his master’s more. 

One afternoon — it was that of the fatal day 
that brought his Lagville experiences to a cli- 
max — John succeeded in finding his ‘‘father” 
unattended. So far as he could find out, both 
Glaxton and Simmons were out of the house. 
The old man was sleeping heavily and John 
suspected that an opiate had been admin- 
istered to keep him quiet until Glaxton’s re- 
turn. He was agitated by vague suspicions 
which for some days had haunted him — suspi- 
cions apparently incapable of proof; and now 
to these uneasy and murky fancies was added 
the intuition that something exceedingly im- 
portant must be happening or about to hap- 
pen, otherwise the lawyer would not for so 
long have relinquished his watchfulness. 

He determined to wake the invalid though 
dreading possible heart-complications. It was 
only after considerable difficulty that he suc- 
ceeded in doing so. 

“We are alone,” he said as soon as he could 
hold the other’s attention. “Don’t be afraid 
to speak to me frankly. Nobody can hear us.” 
He bent over the vials on the little stand by 


The Picture on the Wall 189 

the bedside. ^^Which of these medicines do you 
take? And when do you take them?^’ 

Mr. Warring answered in a far-away voice, 
dealing out the words slowly, with no shade of 
interest. John listened intently. From the 
family physician he had learned all about the 
course of medicine prescribed, and had famil- 
iarized himself with each drug and the fre- 
quency of its use. The response of the sick 
man tallied exactly with the physician’s expo- 
sition. 

The young man breathed a sigh of such ex- 
pansive relief that he was troubled to realize 
how confidently he had anticipated some dis- 
crepancy. He told himself grudgingly that 
everything was all right — there had been no 
pernicious substitution — after all it was sim- 
ply a matter of an unaccountable heart-ac- 
tion. An uncertain heart is always mysteri- 
ous to one whose heart is normal, but it is one 
of nature’s mysteries and John had begun to 
fear this might be one of man’s. 

He seated himself at the bedside, and took 
the invalid’s hand. ‘‘Father, are you satis- 
fied with the way things are moving along? 
Doesn’t Glaxton get on your nerves? I’d like 
to see him put out of the house. What about 
it?” 

The pallid face grew whiter. For a few mo- 
ments there was no response, then his hand 
closed on John’s as he whispered, “He holds 
all of my affairs in his hands. All the threads. 
Nobody else could untangle them,” he panted, 
his bosom beginning to heave alarmingly. 
“That’s one reason why I went away. To find 
out if I couldn’t unsnarl the lumber interests 
in a way to put yon at the head of the yards. 
But there’s nothing I could do. Everything’s 
— fixed.” 


190 


The Picture on the Wall 


did he get such control?” 
don’t know, John. Sometimes I wonder. 
But I don’t know. For a long time I haven’t 
been myself. But wasn’t that a blessed time 
when you first came ! Of course I believe your 
Cousin Glaxton is honest.” His fingers grew 
tense. “I must believe it. I must !” He 
looked wildly at the other. 

^Hf he is — of course. . . . But if he isn’t — ” 

‘‘You mustn’t say ‘if.’ In that case he could 
ruin us all. Because everything is in his 
hands. If he were antagonized he could put 
on the screws ; legally. But he’s all right. He 
must be. I won’t think anything else.” 

“I don’t like him, father. And I will get 
rid of him with your permission.” 

“It’s too late, my boy. It’s too late. And 
we must believe he is honest. I think he is. 
He must be. And besides, nobody else can 
keep my heart from hammering the life out 
of me.” 

“Your heart was all right while he was 
away.” 

“Of course it might seem all right for months 
at a time. But when it goes wrong, Glaxton 
knows how to quiet it. That medicine on the 
table — well, it’s the best our doctor can do. I 
take it to please him. Tonics and all that. 
But what really soothes me isn’t on that table. 
Glaxton seems to know everything. Best of 
all, he knows how to quiet me.” 

“Does the doctor know what secret medicine 
he gives you?” 

“Why, my dear boy, your Cousin Glaxton 
gives me only what you see there. He has no 
medicine in the sense you mean, though we re- 
fer to it as ‘medicine.’ It is simply a mag- 
netic treatment. He is a remarkably mag- 
netic man. He gets me under control.” 


The Picture on the Wall 191 

John recalled Glaxton’s dark face and was 
ready to admit his powerful individuality. 
He shuddered. ^^Father, let me nurse you. 
I’ll do exactly as the doctor advises, and have 
you well again. We’ll go to the bank as we 
did when I first came, and take our auto rides 
with Lucia — ” 

The sweat stood upon Mr. W^'ar ring’s brow. 
^^But it isn’t the doctor who can help me, it 
isn’t you, dear boy, it’s Glaxton. He has the 
touch.” 

John asked abruptly, “Is it really your wish, 
as Glaxton pretends, that Brother Tredmill 
should not come to this house?” 

“You mustn’t talk about that. You’d better 
not talk to me any longer. Just let me lie still, 
oh, as still as death. After a time my heart 
gets right, if I lie very still.” 

It was impossible for John to close his eyes 
to the fact that he was making the invalid 
worse, but he persisted. “What shall be done 
with the box of money that we buried in the 
garden ?” 

Mr. Warring grasped his arm. “Hush — 
hush! You say no one can hear us talking, 
but you can never be sure.” His breath came 
with distressing rapidity like that of a spent 
runner. “The green liquid — quick!” 

John served him expertly and he was soon 
quieted. After a silence he murmured, “Don’t 
talk to me about such things, my dear boy, 
until I am stronger, or it will be the death of 
me.” After a longer silence, he patted John’s 
hand affectionately. “I’m growing quite easy, 
now. You’d better leave me, dear boy. I’m 
going to try to sleep. I’d rather your Cousin 
Glaxton didn’t know I’d been awake. If he 
finds out you’ve been here, he’ll get the whole 
story from me. Simmons told him about the 


192 


The Picture on the Wall 


dirt on the spade and before I knew what I 
was about I’d described the spot where the box 
was hidden away. Your Cousin Glaxton has 
a touch. He soothes me. He makes me tell 
him everything.” 

John gave a short laugh. ^‘Then you think 
Glaxton got the box?” 

course he wouldn’t take it, John,” the 
other sighed reproachfully. ^Wour Cousin 
Glaxton is honest. We must believe that. 
But he knows where it is — I had to tell him. 
He has such a touch; so magnetic.” 

^^Listen, father — ” John bent over him. 
changed the hiding-place of the box before Sim- 
mons or Glaxton could get to it. Of course 
they’ve looked for it in the summerhouse. And 
finding it gone, of course they think I’ve car- 
ried it away for safe keeping.” 

Mr. Warring opened and closed his eyes rap- 
idly. His breathing was regular. He spoke 
in carefully repressed tones: “My boy, you’ve 
told me a great piece of news. Where did you 
put it ? — but no ; don’t tell me. Let it be your 
secret alone.” A smile flickered over the 
pinched features. “See that you guard it well. 
Now let me sleep.” 

John rose and bent over him stirred by con- 
flicting remorse and affection — remorse at the 
deceptive part he was playing, affection that 
had strengthened from the hour of their meet- 
ing. “Have I given you a little courage?” he 
asked wistfully. 

“Son, guard that secret. Lucia’s happiness 
may depend upon it.” 

“Her happiness is dearer to me than my 
life,” John declared fervently. 

“I know it is. You have made me a bappy 
man.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 

BETTIE ONCE MORE TO THE RESCUE 

When John went down stairs, Lucia, Vir^e 
and Alice, in the sitting-room, were planning 
to spend the evening hour at the picture-play 
where the Rev. Mr. Tredmill would assuredly 
join them. In these days Tredmill was per- 
haps less minister than lover. At any rate it 
was well-known that he disapproved of all 
moving-pictures save those of an educational 
value which neither thrill nor provoke to 
laughter; yet was he willing, for the sake of 
Alice’s nearness, to gaze upon protracted kiss- 
ings, the smashing of dishes and flinging about 
of pies, and breakneck races through crowded 
city streets. 

John passed the door with his sunny smile 
to indicate that in spirit he was with the girls, 
then left the house on one of his long medita- 
tive walks. Many a time afterward he mused 
with regret upon this wasted opportunity of 
spending the afternoon with Lucia: watching 
the smiles gather in her eyes, and the light of 
affection come and go about her happy mouth. 
If one could but know at rise of sun that one’s 
day of fate has dawned, how jealously would 
the hours be hoarded! 

When he came back to town from his loiter- 
ing exploration of country lanes it was grow- 
ing dark, less from the lateness of the hour 
than from gathering clouds. From watching 
the heaving masses rolling up from the south 
he became suddenly aware that he was being 
followed and then it flashed upon him that 

19 a 


194 


The Picture on the Wall 


ever since his approach to the town-limits 
somebody had been dogging his footsteps. 

In selecting a short-cut home he had plunged 
into a malodorous alley between the rear walls 
of small sheds and the bulging fences of frowsy 
back lots. Some one who had been across the 
street from him before his coming to this most 
squalid section of Lagville, now crept into the 
same obscurity. John had given no heed to 
the elusive figure and could not have told if it 
was that of a man or a woman. 

He stopped short, thrilled by the misgiving 
that at last the detectives had penetrated his 
disguise. 

The obscure form instead of pausing at the 
head of the alley or slackening its pace rapidly 
approached. It was a young woman; and as 
she drew near the pretty features, the rounded 
outlines of vigorous youth, the characteristic 
movements of independent ease, recalled a pic- 
ture from his Kansas City life. 

‘^Bettie he exclaimed, amazed, but im- 
mensely relieved. 

He seized her hands and if, as Lucia had 
declared, a more intimate greeting on his part 
was wrong, he committed the crime in 
thought; for though their lips did not meet, 
in his heart he kissed her. “Bettie! How won- 
derful And he questioned her anxiously. 

‘Wes, I’ll explain everything,” she fluttered. 
“That’s why I’m here. But where can we 
talk without people seeing us?” 

This was a difficult problem and the best 
solution he could think of was the Warring 
automobile. He hurried away for it while she 
waited near the head of the alley. 

Presently they were speeding along the coun- 
try roads he had grown to know so well from 
his solitary rambles. Amidst their quiet love- 


The Picture on the Wall 195 

liness it sounded oddly incongruous when Bet- 
tie explained that her father’s houseboat was 
tied up among the willows about half a mile 
above town, and that Blearstead was on the 
boat, and Cleek as well. 

‘We’ve been there two days,” she said, “but 
Pa keeps such a sharp eye out that this is 
the first time I’ve had a chance to warn you.” 

He asked her, forebodingly, what they meant 
to do. 

“Blearstead has come to get money out of 
Mr. Glaxton by selling him the secret that 
you’re only John Walters, no kin to Mr. War- 
ring at all. Cleek is a witness. They’re to- 
gether right now. I listened a long time to 
their scheming. Blearstead was afraid to con- 
fess that he was the one made you act the part 
of the kidnapped son. But Mr. Glaxton got it 
out of him. He wouldn’t pay over a cent till 
he knew everything — or thought he knew ev- 
erything. But there is something he never 
found out, although he is so smart. They 
wrangled by the hour. At last Blearstead 
owned up that it was his scheme. Then Mr. 
Glaxton wanted to know where a box was that 
he said you’d buried in the summerhouse and 
afterwards had carried away. But Blearstead 
didn’t know. Or he said he didn’t. I don’t 
think Mr. Glaxton believed that. Pa sits there 
saying nothing. He did his talking to Blear- 
stead before the frame-up. All his part is to 
get some of the money for bringing Blearstead 
and Cleek in the boat. Mr. Glaxton had a 
witness with him to take everything down.” 

John was surprised at the notion of Sim- 
mons as a secretary. 

“I can’t think of his name, but he runs the 
biggest store here in town.” 

John gasped, “Eugene Ware?” 


196 


The Picture on the Wall 


^^Thaf s the one/^ 

John muttered, ^Tlease don’t say a word 
for a few minutes. I want to fit my mind to 
the suit of ideas you’ve handed me.” After a 
half-mile taken at terrific speed, he slowed 
down. “What’s the game, Bettie?” 

“You will be arrested early in the morning 
as an imposter. Pa and Blearstead and Cleek 
are to be given that long to get themselves and 
the boat safe away. Ma knows a secret that 
would — ” she checked herself. “Anyway, she’s 
afraid to say her name’s her own. Some day 
I may tell you. But now you’ve got to hide 
out.” 

“Every one has his secret,” John murmured, 
thinking of Virgie’s strange secretiveness. 
“Does your mother know something that 
would give me a hold on Glaxton?” 

“I don’t think Vd better say any more about 
that. You know I’d tell you if I thought I 
could. I’ve tried to be your friend — ” 

“You have been right in Class A, Bettie.” 
He drew a long breath. “Well — this is the 
end of my story. I knew it would come some 
day; but ‘some day’ never means today, does 
it! So I’ve a respite until morning?” 

“Yes, that’s the bargain so Blearstead won’t 
get caught. But you’ll need all of tonight for 
travel if you give them the slip. Glaxton was 
something awful when they told him how he’d 
been fooled by you, and that Eugene Ware fel- 
low was like a crazy man.” 

John’s teeth . clenched omino-usly. “I’ll 
face ’em,” he said grimly. “I’ll know how to 
deal with a crazy man.” Then his features re- 
laxed. He gave her a smile. “If you could 
come with me, we wouldn’t ask odds of the 
world. You could get me out of every kind 
of scrape that’s invented.” 


The Picture on the Wall 


197 


“Oh, John!’’ She caught her breath. “But 
they’d miss me, and that would make it easier 
for them to find you.” 

“Yes,” he assented absently. 

She closed her eyes, too proud for him to 
catch the gleam of sudden tears. “Of course,” 
she faltered, “if I dressed up like a man — ” 

He roused himself and turned the car about. 
“Bettie, once I wrote you a letter when I was 
feeling awful blue and hadn’t seen much of the 
world because I hadn’t seen Lagville — under- 
stand ? This is something I’m trying to put 
real close to your heart. What I mean is that 
when I wrote that letter — I hadn’t met Lucia. 
See?” 

The light faded from her face. 

“But after seeing her — well, I’ve got to go on 
alone. That’s what it means, dear. The world 
I lived in when you and I went fishing and 
boating and were so happy together, is one 
place. And the world I’ve lived in since I’ve 
known Lucia is another. Dear faithful Bet- 
tie, there isn’t any bridge between. If there 
is I haven’t found it. And if I had found it — 
I couldn’t come back.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” 
she complained, her lip between her teeth. 

“Of course you wouldn’t. I’m just rambling 
on. It only means that I must live alone, 
while I live — because of Lucia. But, thank 
God! I’ll live a free man, while I live — be- 
cause of you. There are two names I’ll bless 
with my last breath and yours is one of them.” 

“Bettie comes before Lucia,” she choked, 
then tried a brave laugh as he offered, “But of 
course a person’s heart doesn’t beat alphabeti- 
cally!” 

From over the hilltops the lights of Lagville 
were visible. Bettie held her head high. “I 


198 


The Picture on the Wall 


didn’t tell you, John, that I have a gentleman 
friend.” 

hope he’s worthy of you,” he cried fer- 
vently. 

“He has all kinds of money.” She nodded 
her head emphatically. 

“I wonder if he’d lend any to a poor beg- 
gar?” 

“And handsome — oh, just so handsome!’^ 

“Just like that?” John teased. “Gracious!” 

His manner forced a reluctant smile to her 
lips. She nodded her pretty little head and 
murmured, “He’s crazy about me.” 

“Then he’s not only rich, but a man of 
sense.” 

“But I’m going to turn him down.” She 
flung out her hand with the palm from her: 
“just like that. I’m going to live like you, 
alone — all alone — ” Her voice steadied itself, 
but her countenance was preternaturally 
solemn: “And alone and alone and alone — ” 

He stopped the car at the suburbs and press- 
ed her hand to his cheek, then spoke in the 
whimsical manner habitual to him even in 
moments of deepest gloom: “Us alone people 
must say good-by now ! If Glaxton or my uncle 
saw us together we’d not have the ghost of a 
chance to give them the slip.” 

When he stepped through the doorway of 
the Warring residence after putting the au- 
tomobile away, the clock was striking nine. 

Lucia ran to meet him in the hall. “Where 
have you been? We’ve been ready to go to thR 
picture-show a long time, but you’re so late 
we’ve had to wait for the second show. The 
others have gone on ahead.” She looked at him 
reproachfully. “I hope my brother isn’t going 
to keep late hours.” 

He smiled guiltily, wondering if by any 


The Picture on the Wall 199 . 

magic she could detect the Bettie-perfurae on 
his coatsleeve. “Yes, I know nine o’clock is 
something terrible!” 

She searched his face. “What is it, John?” 

“Has Glaxton come home?” 

She made a comical grimace. “No — let’s 
forget him. Come, we must run to overtake 
our crowd.” 

“Listen to me, dear girl: there’s something 
very important that 1 must see about — some- 
thing about father; and there’s not a second 
to lose. I must be with him alone before Glax- 
ton comes back. So I can’t go with you. Tell 
the others — no, don’t tell them how dreadfully 
necessary this is or they might do something 
to interfere, meaning to help. . Tell them I 
have a headache. It’ll be the truth. I could 
certainly prove up my claim to a good one, 
Lucia !” 

“My poor J ohn !” All at once she was sweet 
commiseration. “I’m so, so sorry.” She 
stroked his forehead. “Of course I’ll miss 
you all the evening. But I’ll be thinking of 
you, hoping you are getting a good rest. And 
anyway I’m glad to have this chance to tell 
you good-by.” She looked up into his face. 

He murmured with constraint, “Good- 
night.” 

Her hand was on his shoulder: “Still glad 
to have your little sister?” 

“Of course,” he muttered confusedly. 

She laughed. “Oh, you cold-hearted, mat- 
ter-of-fact brother!” Suddenly her arm slip- 
ped about his neck. “You’re going to kiss me 
good-night if it’s the last act of your life. 
You never have. And if the mere prospect of 
it makes you blush like this, you ought to be 
practicing during the day.” 

“Listen to me, little Golden Head,” he pro- 


200 


The Picture on the Wall 


tested. have something on hand thaPs no 
end important and it must be finished up be- 
fore Glaxton comes home. If I stay another 
minute here with you, adorable little Sunshine 
Mouth, big Eyes of Blue — I^m afraid 1^11 eat 
you up.^^ 

He broke from her embrace and fied up- 
stairs. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

THE MIDNIGHT WATCHER 

In the upstairs hall John paused at the bal- 
ustrade until he had heard Lucia pass from 
the house and click behind her the latch of 
the yard-gate. Then he moved along the wall 
with exceeding care. All that he could hope 
to accomplish in the Warring residence must 
be done now, before Glaxton came back from 
the houseboat; and although, viewed from one 
angle, it might appear an amazing coincidence 
should he successfully interpose in a matter 
of life and death at the only time such inter- 
ference was possible, viewed otherwise, it ap- 
peared reasonable that he might accomplish his 
purpose. Since it was arranged to arrest him 
in the morning, Glaxton would feel it essen- 
tial to his purpose that Mr. Warring should not 
interfere. If there was ever a time, therefore, 
when he administered a drug unprescribed by 
the physician, it would be tonight, and in all 
probability soon after his return. John had 
set himself the task of discovering if Mr. War- 
ning’s fluctuations of health were not due to 
this sinister cause. 

He opened his ^‘father’s” door without rous- 
ing the invalid, whose breathing suggested 
that he was resting under the influence of an 
opiate. It was the opinion of the family phy- 
sician that opiates are better suited than any- 
thing else to meet the frailties of the flesh, per- 
haps from the philosophy that it is better not 
to feel one’s illness than to contend against it. 
Although John was aware that Glaxton had 

201 


202 


The Picture on the Wall 


the doctor’s sanction in administering the green 
liquid, he was convinced not only that Glax- 
ton’s manner of giving it was gravely inju- 
rious, but that the lawyer knew this to be the 
case yet persisted under the cloak of authority 
with evil intent. 

As this was assuredly his last chance to put 
his theory to the test, so it had been his first, 
and realizing that Glaxton might make his ap- 
pearance at any moment, and that Simmons 
might be somewhere about the place, he went 
swiftly and noiselessly to work, confident that 
he would not arouse the sleeper. 

After the precaution of a swift survey of the 
adjoining chamber — Glaxton’s bedroom — he 
left open the communicating door just as he 
had found it, then stealthily crossed to the 
side of the room opposite the bed. The trunk 
was exactly as he and Mr. Warring had left 
it after removing the box of banknotes; that 
is, the lid stood ajar sufficiently to give a 
glimpse of the mixed-up contents of papers and 
old letters. The millionaire could have found 
no securer place for the concealment of treas- 
ure. The very fact that the lid could not be 
locked would disarm suspicion on the part of 
Glaxton, while Mr. Warring, having the trunk 
before his eyes whenever he looked across the 
room from his bed could instantly note any 
alteration in its position. 

John raised the lid, testing it carefully to 
make sure that it would give forth no warn- 
ing squeak of the hinges, then drew forth bags 
of old letters and photographs, burdening him- 
self with as much of the trunk’s contents as 
he could carry without danger of spilling any- 
thing on the way. These accumulations of the 
past, the dregs of yesterdays, he bore to his 
room which was situated diagonally across the 


The Picture on the Wall 


208 


hall. Heaping his load carelessly in a corner, 
he darted back, this time carrying a sheet, into 
which he gathered the loose letters and papers. 
In his room once more, he locked himself in, 
and, working in feverish haste, assesmbled such 
articles as he meant to carry away with him 
on his long flight. It made but a small bun- 
dle which he tossed from the window into the 
midst of a flowering bridalwreath shrub. 

Leaving his key in the lock, he climbed out 
the window upon the roof of a side-porch, whose 
pillar brought him safely to the ground. Sim- 
mons was not in sight; doubtless he was up 
the river with his master. John circled the 
house, came, in through the front door and re- 
turned to the invalid’s room. 

The trunk had been left wide open. Mr. 
Warring still slept profoundly. John climbed 
into the trunk, pulled down the lid in its old 
position and waited. As he had foreseen, the 
crack, resulting from the lid’s failure to close 
down, gave him all the air he would need while 
providing him with a convenient spyhole. He 
had a full view not only of the bed but of the 
medicine-table. 

The trunk was large enough to insure him 
against painful cramping and excitement prom- 
ised to make short work of his period of wait- 
ing. 

The first person to come was Simmons. He 
glided noiselessly into the room like an un- 
canny shadow endowed with independent life, 
poked his long head into his master’s apart- 
ment, then slipped across the hall to pause be- 
fore John’s room. The watcher did not doubt 
that he was finding out whether or not the door 
was locked. The key in the lock would con- 
vince him that John was in his room, and if 
he had heard of the headache, as probably he 


204 


The Picture on the Wale 


had, since he seemed to gather everything 
afloat, he would believe John safely in bed. 

Simmons went down stairs, and now he made 
no effort to move noiselessly. If he had sus- 
pected that John’s headache was assumed, the 
key in the lock had convinced him otherwise, 
and he believed nobody else was at home. 

Some time later, the family came back from 
the “opera house;” Mrs. Abbottsfleld, Virgie, 
Alice and Lucia. At the same time Glaxton 
showed up from the garden, causing John to 
wonder if he had been there with Simmons 
waiting with the idea that the headache might 
pass off when the others came home. 

John could hear Glaxton hypocritically ex- 
pressing surprise that “his young friend” was 
not with the young people, and he heard Lucia 
explaining why he had gone to bed at an early 
hour. For half an hour the house was filled 
with the noises of people taking farewell of 
the day, which gradually faded away to longer 
and longer silences emphasized by the sudden 
shudder of a window or creaking of a floor. 

Glaxton had gone into his room from the 
hall and John heard him undressing and after 
awhile began to fear that all his pains had been 
for nothing. The lights were turned off. The 
lawyer was in bed. Still he waited although 
uneasily conscious of the need of time for his 
intended flight. 

Suddenly a beam of light penetrated the 
crack between trunk and lid, causing him to 
give so sudden a start that his heart jumped 
with the fear that he had betrayed himself. 
Glaxton had left his bed, had come barefooted 
into the room, and had switched on the light 
in the ceiling. Had he caught sight of John’s 
shrinking eye? He glided like a ghost, in 
his long white nightdress, to lock the hall- 


The Pictueb on the Wall 


205 


door, then went to a cabinet out of the watch- 
er’s line of vision. When he came in sight 
he carried in his hand a tiny bottle. 

John was seeing enacted before him as in a 
play the suspicion that for days had tormented 
him. Glaxton removed the stopper from the 
vial, then as from an after-thought, shut off 
the ceiling-light, leaving the room in profound 
darkness. After a moment, the night-light 
over the medicine-table was shining greenly. 
It brought out the lawyer’s dark features as in 
a halo of baleful glory. As he held the vial 
over one of the table-glasses, his hand was as 
steady as a rock. 

Several drops were counted into the glass 
which was then filled one-third with water. 
Glaxton placed a thick piece of ice in the wa- 
ter and moved the glass within easy reach of 
the invalid’s hand. Instead of carrying the 
vial back to the cabinet he slipped it into a 
pocket of his robe, stood a moment in thought, 
then went to the wall where hung the land- 
scape painting. He drew from behind it the 
little key which, as John knew, and perhaps 
as Glaxton suspected, belonged to the money- 
box. 

He stood frowning at the key, then glanc- 
ing at the recumbent figure of the unconscious 
man, and although he was removed from the 
circle of light above the night-light, his frown 
was plainly visible. 

So he knew the key’s hiding-place! Had he 
forced the knowledge from the owner? Doubt- 
less. John supposed Mr. Warring had 
drawn forth the key on the night of his leav- 
ing town, to let John know where it was to 
be found in case of accident. Had Mr. War- 
ring anticipated while the box was being bur- 


206 


The Picture on the Wall 


ied that his heart would fail? Or in other 
words that Glaxton would find him? 

Glaxton restored the key and went back to 
his room. The light was switched off, showing 
that the lawyer could regulate the invalid’s 
night-light from his own bed. No doubt when 
he was ready for Mr. Warring to wake up, he 
would turn on his light; Mr. Warring would 
find the ice-water. . . . 

At last regular breathing from the next room 
told the watcher that the lawyer was asleep. 
John crept from his hiding-place, stealthily 
poured out the contents of the suspicious glass, 
replaced it with pure ice-water and succeeded 
in unlocking the door and passing out unde- 
tected. He crept to the front of the long dark 
hall by pressing his hand for safety along the 
wall. He was almost as much surprised as re- 
lieved to discover a line of light under the last 
door on his right. He tapped upon the door 
ever so gently. 

It was Lucia’s door, across the hall from the 
guest-room now occupied by Alice. At first 
there was no response, then, as if Lucia had 
persuaded herself that she had heard some- 
thing, she asked, startled, “What is that?” 

John hesitated as if unable to answer the 
simple inquiry. Then he said, guardedly, 
“Your brother.” 

There was a faint cry of pleasure. 

“Wait a minute,” Lucia cried excitedly yet 
restrainedly, taking warning from his cau- 
tious tone. In less than a miunte she was in 
the doorway, presented by an electric candle 
as a most bewitching picture. Over the black 
cape hastily donned to hide neck and shoul- 
ders her hair fell like a shower of gold. 

“Come in,” she whispered delightedly. Then 
her face changed to indefinite tenderness. 


The Picture on the Wall 


207 


^‘You poor boy, that headache hasn’t let yon 
sleep a wink! I’m so sorry — I wish I could 
change heads with you. Come right in; I’m 
not a bit sleepy. I’ve been sitting by the win- 
dow for an hour. The sky is wonderful, to- 
night. I don’t see how anybody can close his 
eyes to it. I was wondering if you could.” 

He interposed tensely, ^‘Lucia, I’ve some- 
thing to tell you, and I’m in a great hurry. 
And in a great stress. No, I mustn’t come in. 
Will you slip down to the garden? Glaxton 
mustn’t hear you. I’ll be waiting, there. I 
know how unconventional this must seem — ” 

‘^Oh, you ridiculous boy!” she laughed with- 
out sound, her eyes dancing. “Half the time 
you don’t seem to realize that you are kin to 
me! Do I want a conventional brother? If 
there’s such a dreadful hurry — I can see by 
your face that something has happened — ” 

“Yes, yes, something has happened, Lucia.” 

“Then I’ll come just as I am — ” Her face 
grew anxious. “I’ll not stop for my shoes and 
stockings — ” 

“You’d better, Lucia. You need more things 
on, there’s such a dew.” 

“Then come in while I get ready, for if you 
stand there, darling, Mr. Glaxton will be sure 
to pop out of his door and catch you.” She 
caught his hand to draw him in out of danger. 
“I know something dreadful is the matter,” 
she murmured, “but I was feeling so lonesome 
and the sight of you is so filling for an empty 
heart that I can’t help feeling this is a lark! 
May I feel that it is a lark, John?” 

Something was drawing him toward her in- 
finitely stronger than the strength of her gleam- 
ing white arm, but he resisted with the will- 


208 


The Picture on tThb Wall 


power that lent his face an aspect of granite 
grimness. 

‘‘Dear girl, it isn’t Glaxton I’m afraid of 
just now. . . . I’ll wait for you in the 
garden.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

LUCIA IN THE GARDEN 

When Lucia reached the summerhouse, John 
was waiting in the dark. The night was glori- 
ously warm and every touch of the breeze was 
a caress. Heavy clouds were breaking up, 
showing here and there brief spaces of the 
sky intensely blue like Lucia’s eyes. Almost 
overhead through snowy laces of vapor-cur- 
tain the moon occasionally showed a gleaming 
edge of its spinning disc. The garden shrub- 
beries and flower-beds pressed nearer with 
their perfumes and sometimes when the moon 
burst triumphantly free from its entangle- 
ments the high house shot up like a fairy 
palace created by a thought from the spot 
where nothing had been but a shadow-dream. 

‘^I know how deeply in earnest you are,” she 
sighed as they seated themselves on the rustic 
bench. ^^It’s all in your face and manner. 
But oh, I want to play! The night is divine. 
It reminds me that we are divine; and ought 
to play.” 

‘^Dear girl, I am truly in earnest. And have 
very little time for what I must do. You may 
play when I am gone.” 

^^Gone !” she echoed uneasily. ‘‘But you will 
not leave me, John.” 

“So much must be done before morning. 
I’m going to ask you to pay the closest atten- 
tion to everything I say; please don’t inter- 
rupt. If you don’t interrupt I’ll find it easier 
to explain.” 

“But how can I pay close attention? Look, 
209 


210 


The Picture on the Wall 


the clouds are always interrupting by chang- 
ing their shapes. Do you see that pretty lady 
up there? And a horse to carry her away on 
some great sky-adventure. She’s changing— 
she’s changing — oh, fickle lady! Now she’s an 
owl. Do you see that she’s an owl? What a 
wise lady to be out so late!” 

Unable to resist this sprightliness he laugh- 
ed, then laid his finger on her lips. ^‘Dear girl, 
you really must grow serious.” 

She kissed his finger gayly but he could no 
longer smile. “Don’t stop me to wonder about 
this or that, for when I’ve finished, you’ll un- 
derstand everything.” 

“But I’m not in a hurry as you are, John, 
and from the way you begin, I’m sure I’ll not 
enjoy knowing what you call ‘everything.’ 
Are you going to make your sister unhappy? 
The moon is coming out of shadow again — 
hold your face this way, John, so I can look 
into your eyes.” 

He returned her look so intently that her 
eyes fell. She faltered, “What is it all about? 
Are you going to end by doing .as the rest of 
us have done — let Cousin Glaxton get on your 
nerves?” Her voice, all its sprightliness gone, 
died away to a plaintive whisper. 

He spoke rapidly, driving straight toward 
his end: “There’s a part of my life you’ve 
never heard of, and a part I’ve purposely 
twisted to give you a wrong impression. Now 
I want you to know the whole truth in as few 
words as possible. There’s my mother for in- 
stance. You don’t know about her.” 

“Your mother!” she protested. Then quick- 
ly, “But of course — I understand.” 

“She was a fine woman, Lucia. As poor as 
she could be, with health all gone, her last 
year, but working like a slave to make some- 


The Picture on the Wall 


211 


thing of me. That was her life — trying to lift 
me up.” 

Lucia commented sympathetically, “The only 
mother you ever knew.” 

“I was too young to understand her sacri- 
fices. I let mother give herself for me — ” 

“She did all that, darling, but don’t call 
her Mother,’ for our dear mother alone has 
the right — ” 

“But she was indeed — she was mother to 
me.” 

“I know she was splendid to make you what 
you are. But I can’t understand. You 
thought the man who kidnapped you was your 
father. I don’t see how the wife of such a 
creature could have been the woman you de- 
scribe.” 

“She was determined to bring me up as hon- 
est as the day. I told you I ran away from 
home. But it was mother who ran away, tak- 
ing me with her, and we couldn’t be found, un- 
til an uncle came upon us after I was grown, 
in Kansas City — ” 

“But you told us you’d never been in Kan- 
sas City.” 

“There were certain imperative reasons why 
I told you various things that Pm trying now 
to set straight. That uncle found me in Kan- 
sas City and mother was too broken in 
strength to try to escape from him as she had 
from my father — ” 

“Your father! Oh, don^t!” 

“My kidnapper. My mother’s husband. Let 
me go on, Lucia : When my mother died, I had 
the bad luck to break my leg, and soon after, 
break it over. My mother’s brother seemed 
my only friend. He didn’t spare money or 
care, but now I know his one object was to 
get me in his power. I felt under obligations. 


212 


The Picture on the Wall 


So when T could hobble around T helped in the 
restaurant, just waiting till I had fully recov- 
ered in order to skip out for myself. But 
about that time I found out that he was a 
housebreaker as well as a brother of the kid- 
napper. My father — the kidnapper — was dead 
and my, uncle — his name is Blearstead — came 
into possession of the old suitcase with the 
letters and means of identification. I got them 
from him; not, as I told you, from the kid- 
napper on his dying bed. I wonder if you are 
beginning to understand?” 

She put her hands to her head. ‘What is 
all this you are telling me?” She gasped. “I 
understand nothing at all. The more you say, 
the more I am confused.” 

“I don^t know how to tell it — thaPs my 
trouble. Alice and Virgie know a little of the 
story. Ask them. I’ll not go into that. What 
you must understand isn’t about me, after all. 
I don’t matter. I’m nobody. It’s your father’s 
danger I want to press home.” In quick, short 
phrases he related his experience in the in- 
valid’s room. Her horror over this revelation, 
coming on top of her utter bewilderment, left 
her without power of speech. 

“That’s. the cause of your father’s sudden 
changes,” he explained. “You must tell what 
I have seen to the doctor. To every one. To 
Brother Tredmill. Even Eugene Ware will 
help you — yes, Eugene Ware. Your father 
must not be left alone with that wretch anoth- 
er night.” 

“But you !” she gasped, terror-stricken. 
^^You must prevent it. You must!” 

“I cannot help.” 

“You must. You can do all that should be 
done. Why do you say you won’t be here, 
John?” 


The Picture on the Wall 


213 


I were in reality Mr. Warring’s son, I 
could do everything. But I am not what you 
suppose.” 

He started up desperately, wrung by the 
agony of trying to make her see the naked 
truth. ‘‘If I should stay here to proclaim 
what I discovered a short time ago, nobody 
would believe my accusations. Because, this 
afternoon, Glaxton found out what I am try- 
ing to show you: that the little boy kidnap- 
ped by my father was drowned by his confed- 
erate, the nursery-maid. Glaxton is prepared 
to have me arrested in the morning. What I 
might say could not save your father who has 
grown so dear to me. I should be mocked and 
silenced.” 

Lucia sat like a stone. 

He burst out incoherently, “Alice can tell 
you why I came to Lagville. And Virgie. I 
acted this part purely for self-protection. 
You’ll never forgive — or my friends — Brother 
Tredmill — I always had to dread the time 
when it must end, my one happy experience. 
My—” 

He retreated blindly. “Oh, Lucia, I am not 
your brother, I’m not related to Mr. Warring 
in any way. I’m nothing but a homeless wan- 
derer who must go now without even telling 
you good-by, but who, wherever he goes, will 
carry in his heart a love for you that will not 
die though you should die.” 

He rushed from the summerhouse, snatched 
up the bundle from the shrubbery, and leapt 
the fence that separated the garden from the 
road. 


CHAPTER XXIX 

VIRGIE DINES OUT 

One afternoon in May, a young fellow in 
khaki climbed the same flight of iron stairs 
leading to the waiting room of the Kansas 
City Union Station that he had ascended three 
years before, and, as on that occasion, quickly 
sought a distant part of the town though not 
now the environs of Smiling Lane. Intimate 
knowledge of the city enabled him without 
loss of time to reach a row of narrow-chested 
brick buildings off the streetcar lines. He was 
looking for lodgings and he remembered that 
this was a quiet spot with the quietness not 
of refined leisure but of weary toil. 

It was a street practically unknown to Blear- 
stead, and the house whose bell the young sol- 
dier was ringing, was the property, or, as he 
remembered, had three years ago been the prop- 
erty, of Mrs. Abbottsfield. He recalled how 
Virgie and Lucia had joked about the ‘^boom” 
failing to raise property-values in this sec- 
tion, and how Mrs. Abbottsfield, renting out 
the place as a boarding-house, had been rather 
unsuccessful in the collection of rents. 

He had come there, then, both for security 
from recognition and out of sentimental rea- 
sons; but when the landlady opened the door 
he could not have been more greatly shocked 
had she turned into a policeman, shouting, 
^^You are wanted for impersonating the War- 
ring heir!’’ 

In the case of a policeman he should have 
preserved admirable calm, while swiftly medi- 

214 


The Picture on the Wall 


215 


tating immediate flight. The same calmness 
he presented to the woman, but finding himself 
unrecognized, fiight was out of the question. 

“You are the lady of the house?” he gravely 
inquired, taking the precaution, however, to 
alter his tone. 

The lady who was actually Mrs. Abbottsfield, 
preserved her stately bearing, and her voice 
was as precise and carefully modulated as of 
yore; but her eyes were dimmed, for some of 
the light had vanished from her face. Her 
nose-glasses still swung by the slender gold 
chain against her bosom, but she did not lift 
them in the old gallant manner. 

“Yes, I am the landlady.” She had the air 
of not looking at him as if from very courtesy 
he might be prompted to refrain from minutely 
observing her. 

He had never felt congeniality in their asso- 
ciation. He liked to get close to people, even 
iceberg-people, if they could be melted. But 
he could not recall in Mrs. Abbottsfield any in- 
dication of a thaw. However, she was so vi- 
tally a part of the happiest days of his life that 
he felt like throwing his arms about her in a 
hearty embrace, thus, to some degree, grasping 
the atmosphere of the past. 

His efforts at restraint made him seem cold 
enough to suit even her, and they discussed 
terms stiffly. 

Shortly afterward he was installed in a plain 
little room on the top-most floor — the third — 
with a view of kitchen roofs and stovepipe- 
chimneys, and here he meditated profoundly 
upon the situation. With young men in khaki 
everywhere, there was small danger of his uni- 
form calling attention to his face; rather, it 
lent a certain obscurity of distinction for 
which he was grateful. It was his intention 


216 


The Picture on the Wall 


to remain in the state only long enough to find 
out what had become of his former friends, and 
thanks to the evident misfortune that had re- 
duced Mrs. Abbottsfield to play the landlady in 
her own house, once a place held in slight es- 
timation, his stay need not be prolonged. 

From her — or, if he could not summon the 
courage to break through her icy reserve, from 
her ' daughter — he could learn all he craved 
to know about Lucia; in spite of whatever re- 
pugnance she might feel for the part he had 
played in Lagville, the conviction remained that 
she was his friend. 

But why was Mrs. Abbottsfield keeping lodg- 
ings in her dingy brick so obscurely situated? 
What had separated her and Virgie from the 
millionaire? Possibly Mr. Warring was dead 
— and John’s heart burned as he refiected in 
what manner he might have come by his death ; 
but it was not possible that Lucia with all 
her inherited wealth could be living here, 
nor that with her deep affection for the Ab- 
bottsfields she could have made their stay in 
her home unwelcome. If Lucia were dwelling 
under this roof, he thought some mysterious 
force, must tell him so. 

At last he approached and almost accepted 
these dismal conclusions: Mr. Warring was 
dead; Lucia and Eugene Ware were married; 
and Virgie and her mother, unwilling to live 
with them, had come to the house they had so 
often joked about, to lead independent lives. 
Eugene Ware was not the man to want other 
people in his house — or in his wife’s house. 
What had become of Glaxton? Had he been 
suspected in connection with Mr. Warring’s 
illness or death? No doubt he had escaped 
with a large part of the Warring fortune; 


The Picture on the Wall 


217 


but he must have left the house and grounds in 
Lagville, at least ! 

John would like to have known that Lucia 
was happy — he gave a sigh that sounded like 
a groan. He had hoped much from the pass- 
ing of time, but it seemed to have slipped over 
him too smoothly to wear away the keen edges 
of his regret. Perhaps it was because the War, 
so utterly at variance with all the rest of his 
life, had, at the end, left him where it had 
taken him up. 

Later, by patrolling the pavement before 
the house, John succeeded in intercepting 
Virgie on her way home from ofiQce-work. How 
astonishingly unchanged! The kingdoms of 
Europe were altered, the spirit of America was 
reborn, but Virgie’s long nose, and tall, flat- 
chested figure seemed as immutable as the 
Constitution. 

He met her at the corner that they might 
be unobserved from the house, and she would 
have passed him for, like her mother, she had 
grown accustomed to keep her eyes upon the 
ground. 

^‘Virgie!” 

Of course she was glad — that, first of all. 
Then surprise rushed upon her and the re- 
membrance that he had deceived all Lagville; 
but the glow in the sallow cheeks came from 
her sheer delight. 

‘‘John!’’ She grasped his hand. “I don’t 
care about anything else,” she stammered. 
“You are John!” How could she think of him 
as a criminal with his soldierly bearing, his 
frank smile, his wonderful friendliness and all 
the delightful memories peeping over her shoul- 
der to whisper, “Don’t forget us.” Somehow, 
in spite of facts she had never been able to 
think of him other than as an innocent man 


218 


The Picture on the Wall 


caught in a net of misfortunes. His own faith 
in his righteous intentions had always been 
contagious. 

‘‘I must talk to you where we can be alone,” 
he pleaded. ‘‘Tell me the place. I’ll explain 
everything I know and you must hand me all 
I don’t.” 

Breathless, she named a nearby restaurant 
where she generally got something to eat of 
an evening — not very much, he was afraid. 
Her mother, she explained, had no appetite 
after 1 p. m. Therefore she could dine with 
him without causing inquiry. They parted to 
meet at a later hour at the restaurant of her 
choice. 

Seated in an obscure corner with an abun- 
dant dinner before them, he could not restrain 
his impatience to learn what had been taking 
place in Lagville during his long absence, but 
Virgie would tell nothing till he had given an 
account of himself. 

“Don’t be in a hurry to find out about Lag- 
ville,” she warned,” for you won’t enjoy what 
I have to tell. And besides, I’m a million 
times more interested just now in you than in 
us. This is my first meal with a real sol- 
dier — ” 

“Don’t call me that; I’m nothing of the 
sort.” 

“But your uniform !” 

He gave a wry smile. “Oh, I have a right 
to wear that. But I’m not a real soldier;* 
though it isn’t my fault. Nobody wanted to 
get to France worse than I did. But talk 
away, Virgie. Just to hear your voice jars 
loose a thousand bits of talk and laughter and 
dreaming that got wedged in my brain three 
years ago. How natural you are! It’s won- 
derful I” 


The Picture on the Wall 


219 


But she would not talk until he had explained 
himself. 

“Very well,” he said resignedly. “The night 
I left Lagville I hit the trail for Old Mex- 
ico — over the border to the mountains where 
the gold and silver mines grow ripe. I got a 
clerical job with a company that had let most 
of its important m^n go because of unsettled 
conditions. A small salary didn’t discourage 
me ; I’d have hung on for food and rent to keep 
clear of the police. I knew Glaxton wouldn’t 
leave a stone unturned to nab me and of course 
Blearstead in the underground world would be 
working with him. But you can’t think how 
safe I was! That was the only luxury I en- 
joyed but it did something to sweeten my tor- 
tilla — that’s the nightmare for bread. I never 
saw an American paper, never heard a word 
from this part of the country. It wasn’t very 
popular down there to bring up the United 
States in general discussion, and anyway I 
was afraid to show interest in the spot I’d run 
away from; and finally, if I’d asked all day 
there was nobody to enlighten me.” 

He spoke rapidly and at some length of his 
experiences in the English colony, of his long- 
ing for news, and of his dread of seeking it. 

“I wasn’t the only fellow hiding down there,” 
he assured her. His experiences in the army 
he touched upon more rapidly, so eager was he 
to get to the information she deliberately with- 
held. 

“When America got into the war, I volun- 
teered from New Orleans ; got there by steamer 
from Vera Cruz. And I’ve been shipped from 
one camp to another up to the date of my dis- 
charge. Was in the hospital a little while — 
injured my game leg, but not seriously. Looked 
like everybody else was marched off to New 


220 


The Picture on the Wall 


York to take troop ships for Europe, but I was 
continually finding myself left right there in 
the spot I was growing on. One thing, though, 
except for my Liberty Bonds, there was very 
little to spend money on, and I’ve saved up 
enough to pay my board for a long time ! And 
I’ve been switched from one branch of the serv- 
ice to another till I felt like a little army in 
myself, my infantry following up my cavalry 
and my aviator service sailing over my head 
with my machine gun work blazing away in 
its nest. Don’t know why I was changed. 
Took a course in French but never got to use 
it on the natives. Comprenez vous Fran- 
caise?” 

^‘Oui, Monsieur.” 

^Wirgie, n’avew-vous pas abuse de notre 
patience?” 

‘^Stop, stop, John, we are having too many 
courses for our dinner ! Say something in 
English and I’ll answer.” 

“Tell me about the homefolks. It may seem 
strange, but you do seem just homefolks to 
me, the only homefolks I ever had, after my 
mother. You were that to me from the min- 
ute you took me in, that golden afternoon when 
the wind was blowing and the sun was shin- 
ing and to you it was just March. Why aren’t 
you and your mother living at the old home- 
place on the fat of the land? I don’t think 
keeping lodgers agrees with either of you.” 

“Yes it does. There’s some money in it; and 
with my job as a typewriter down town, we’re 
perfectly independent.” 

John thought this over briefly, then said, 
“I was right; Mr. Warring is dead.” 

“Yes.” 

“When — ” he caught his breath, and she saw 
him brush his eyes secretly. Finding him- 


The Picture on the Wall 


221 


self detected, he smiled tremulously. ^^Do you 
know, Virgie, I didn’t dream that I should 
have cared so much. Well, I do. When — did 
it happen ?” 

^^Less than a week after you left us.” 

“I like your ^pressing it that way. ‘Left 
us’ sounds so respectable. Did he get better 
and then worse?” 

“No, never any better. He never knew 
about you — that you were not — ^you know what 
I mean.” 

“I certainly do, Virgie.” 

“He was too low even to miss you. He 
thought you were still with us. Lucia held his 
hand at the last; but I don’t think he knew. 
He passed away in his sleep.” 

He leaned over the table to ask, guardedly, 
“Did you ever hear — did Lucia tell you about 
what I told her just before I went away? I 
mean — that little bottle . . .” 

Virgie whispered, “Yes,” and looked at him 
intently. 

His voice grew stronger in sudden protest: 
“But didn’t anybody do anything about it?” 

“She told the doctor, but he refused to take 
it seriously. She told Eugene Ware because 
you had referred her to him.” 

“Well — he seemed a man of sense, whatever 
else — ” 

“Eugene was very nice about it.” 

“Nice!” he echoed scornfully. “Nice, in a 
matter of life-or-death !” 

“I mean — he treated Lucia all right; but the 
trouble was he — he — 

“Didn’t believe it. Well, that was natural 
enough. But poor Mr. Warring! I could have 
saved him — if only they had believed in me.” 

“But Lucia believed in you, and when she 
found that Eugene would do nothing she de- 


222 


The Picture on the Wall 


termined to watch at the door and save him. 
But Eugene had spoken to Mr. Glaxton about 
it and never once could Lucia catch him off 
his guard. He pretended not to know why she 
was in the hall at midnigh^ And then Mr. 
Warring died.’’ 

^‘Didn’t that make people ask questions?” 

“No — it had been expected for days. And 
besides, other things came up to stir the whole 
town. Changes come so quickly; and after 
they come, it is hard to take back one’s mind 
to old conditions.” 

“Changes? What changes? Oh — you mean 
Lucia and Eugene?” 

“No, I mean the home was broken up. Do 
you remember my telling you once that Mr. 
Glaxton had discovered a secret that gave him 
a hold on me?” 

“I remember that everybody had a secret. 
Yes, I remember about yours.” 

“It was on account of what he had found out 
that he could force me to tell about — about 
your having been in Alice’s house on Troost.” 

“I remember. I wish I could think myself 
as polite in private life as the papers repre- 
sented me as a burglar !” 

“My secret was this — ” Virgie pushed back 
her plate in the stress of the moment, then be- 
gan eating again because the savory food he 
had ordered was irresistible. “Listen, John: 
when Mr. Warring, that good, good man, out 
of a sentiment for old times and from grati- 
tude for being taken care of in his orphanhood 
hunted up my mother — his foster-sister — I was 
too little to know what my mother found at 
once. It was this: Lucia wasn’t Mr. War- 
ring’s daughter.” 

John shook his head. “I don’t seem to get 
it, Virgie; try again.” 


The Picture on the Wall 223 

After his son was kidnapped, he and his 
wife adopted a baby-girl, meaning to raise it 
as their very own.” 

She paused for breath, but John, staring at 
her with pale face, offered no comment. 

‘‘It was only later that I found out the 
truth. That was the secret Mr. Glaxton forced 
from me, how, I hardly know. I was afraid to 
let mother find out I’d told him; afraid and 
ashamed. And he promised to keep the se- 
cret, except at such times as he threatened 
me with it. Oh, it was a horrible situation. 
Whenever I thought of it, I was in a night- 
mare. I had that to dread day and night; 
that the one Lucia revered as her father was 
really not related to her ...” She broke off 
confusedly. 

“So!” John muttered at last. “Neither Lu- 
cia nor I . . . Poor Mr. Warring!” 

“Mr. Glaxton could make me tell anything 
by holding that over my head. That’s how he 
learned about you. It was for Lucia’s sake 
that I broke the promise. Do you remember I 
said if you knew why I told, you’d think I did 
right ?” 

“And you were quite right, Virgie. I’m 
sure you wouldn’t have told from any other 
reason, dear Virgie. And anyway, it doesn’t 
matter about me any more. That came before 
the War and belongs to another age. Poor 
Mr. Warring, lying there at the mercy of a 
devil with no child of his own! I’m thankful 
he believed in me to the last. Instead of do- 
ing him harm, after all I must have given him 
a little comfort. 

“But poor Lucia! I see everything. Glax- 
ton, as nearest of kin, has come into the prop- 
erty. I suppose there had never been a legal 
adoption ?” 


224 The Picture on the Wall 

“Nothing of the sort. And he always pnt 
off making a will. He meant to; but you see 
he was afraid the moment he did, the secret of 
her parentage would get out.” 

“So Glaxton turned all of you out of the 
house!” His teeth clenched ominously. 

She nodded. “Now you understand why 
mother and I are glad to be as well situated as 
we are.” 

“Virgie, it’s great! Nothing like living on 
your own, after all. As soon as possible I 
mean to settle down to good steady work and 
maybe some day, when I’m forgotten by the 
rest of the world, we may all live in the same 
block. That would be fine, wouldn’t it! All 
living in the same block. . . . Well, I suppose 
Eugene Ware is still an intimate friend of 
Glaxton’s?” 

“I suppose so.” 

“Don’t see how Lucia can expect happiness 
in an arrangement of that sort.” 

“But it’s nothing to her,” Virgie said with a 
sudden grin that left him blank with amaze- 
ment. 

He protested, “It can’t help being something 
to her, the kind of person Glaxton is, and the 
way he’s treated all of you, for him to be an 
intimate friend of her — ” he swallowed to make 
the word come easier — her husband.” 

Virgie’s grin became so broad that she would 
have seemed remarkably ugly if he had not 
suddenly found her beautiful. “Her hus- 
band !” she mocked. 

John started up from the table, making the 
dishes rattle. “Isn’t he?” he called loudly, 
heedless of deprecatory glances from neighbor- 
ing tables. 

“Don’t go over the top, John; stay with, me 


The Picture on the Wall 


225 


in the trenches/^ He subsided limply. “No- 
body is her husband.’^ 

“Look here, Virgie, when we met, I’m afraid 
I didn’t let you see how glad I was — let’s shake 
hands all over again.” 

“No, I’m hungry still; and people are watch- 
ing us. And besides, I’m not the one you want 
to shake hands with.” 

“Where is that girl I want to shake hands 
with? — at your mother’s? If we’ve finished 
dinner — 

“But we haven’t. I haven’t been fed in as 
many branches of the service as you, and my 
appetite is still young and inquisitive. And 
Lucia is not in Kansas City. She lives in a 
small town in Kansas not far from Ottawa.” 

“Kansas! And to think that I was in a 
cantonment there ! What is she doing in Kan- 
sas? Can it be that Claxton has turned her 
our of her house without a competency?” 

“Like mother and myself she is working for 
a living. After they dismissed Brother Tred- 
mill from his church — 

“Dismissed! And he worked for those peo- 
ple like a slave!” 

“Maybe that’s why they thought no more of 
him. After he was dismissed he went to the 
little town in Kansas ; soon after, he and Alice 
Klade were married; and Lucia is boarding 
with them. They’d be glad to have her as a 
guest, but you know how proud Lucia is.” 

“I guess I do.” 

“So Lucia teaches school and during her 
holidays spends half her time with us.” 

John stared at the opposite wall, hearing 
nothing of the sounds and seeing nothing of 
the changing sights of the restaurant-scene in 
which his part seemed oddly unreal. At last 
he turned brusquely toward the other: 


226 


The Picture on the Wall 


‘^What did you think of me when you 
learned Pd been playing the imposter? What 
did Aunt Hildegarde — Mrs. Abbottsfield — say? 
How did Lucia feel? I can imagine Glaxton 
trumpeting the news at the breakfast-table; 
and the search for me with the police — find- 
ing the letters and photographs in a corner 
of my room, and Mr. Warring too weak to be 
questioned about his old trunk.’’ 

“I can tell you exactly how I felt,” Virgie 
said; ^^as if the ground had melted away and 
I was falling with no idea of the distance I’d 
have to drop. As to mother she just kept re- 
peating hysterically that she never had believed 
you looked like the picture on the wall. Alice 
regarded it as a dreadful practical joke of her 
Polite Burglar. But Lucia had nothing to 
say. She kept to her room and bed to avoid 
us all.” 

John asked anxiously, “Was she really ill?” 

“What does it matter? She’s well now. 
All that, as you say, was before the war. It 
was Brother Tredmill who made me see things 
in their true light. He said you’d pretended 
to be John Lyle Warring not for gain or ad- 
venture, but to save yourself. Of course it 
was at our expense, but I forgave you. I just 
couldn’t blame you, John. You merited 
a great deal of blame but there wasn’t anybody 
to administer it. The more Mr. Glaxton raved, 
the gladder we were you’d escaped. The 
trouble was we just thought too much of you ! 
And I can’t blame you even now. When you 
give one of your smiles, the world lights up 
and everything’s all right. Oh, that smile of 
yours is an awful responsibility ! If you don’t 
live up to it, it ought to be canned.” 

“Virgie, I was born with it and can’t help my- 
self, but I’m going to try to use it fairly. Do 


The Picture on the Wall 


227 


you think Lucia has really forgiven me? Do 
you think she’d receive me if I went to that 
little town in Kansas not far from Ottawa?” 

^Wou see how glad I am to meet you once 
more. Well, Lucia also is human.” 

“Virgie, you’re an angel!” 

She smiled grimly. “Oh, is that what you 
mean? And Lucia is a woman! I appreciate 
the difference. All right, John, I trust I know 
my place. What do you mean to do — after my 
appetite is appeased?” 

“Go straight to Kansas. Well, no, not ex- 
actly straight.” He took up his knife and fork 
only to lay them aside. “Is Glaxton living in 
that house in Lagville?” 

“He and Simmons have it to themselves.” 

“And poor Lucia working herself to death!” 
he groaned. “Teaching school! How dread- 
ful !” 

“John, how can you say that? There’s noth- 
ing so good as being independent, and diving 
on your own.’ ” 

His face was grim. “I’d think the town- 
people would rise up. The very stones should 
cry out!” Then shortly: “Has he altered the 
house — or garden ?” 

She shook her head. 

Then he told her his plan. On leaving Lag- 
ville he had written to the Eev. Harry Tred- 
mill, inclosing a sealed note to Mr. Warring 
with instructions that it should either be de- 
livered into Mr. Warring’s hand by the min- 
ister, or destroyed. It could not have been de- 
livered. In that sealed envelope had been ex- 
plicit directions for finding the new hiding- 
place of the money-box. The secret was still 
John’s alone. He meant to go to Lagville, dig 
up the treasure and take it to Lucia. At least 
that much of the Warring property should be 


228 


The Picture on the Wall 


hers. By no moral right could it be diverted 
to Glaxton’s uses. Of course John would be 
obliged to disguise himself and work in secret. 
If he were discovered digging in the garden, or 
carrying away the box of banlmotes. . . . 


CHAPTER XXX 

THE HIDDEN MONEY-BOX 

It was a cloudy, moonless night when John 
pulled up the river from the town where he 
had procured the skiff — a small collection of 
scattered houses about two miles below Lag- 
ville. He had chosen this means of returning 
to the scene of his happiest days in order to 
avoid attracting attention and have the advan- 
tage of the current should his departure be- 
come a flight for liberty. 

When the dark masses of trees thinned away 
and the lights of the village peeped at him be- 
yond the bottomlands, memories grew more 
vivid than the living world. They threatened 
to get between his eyes and what he had to 
do, for, gazing upstream he saw the bluff tow- 
ering above the level dark, and seemed to find 
on its jutting rock the shining figure of Lucia. 

The hour was too critical, however, not to 
call for his keenest perceptions and the swift- 
est play of his wits and he resolutely banish- 
ed from mind all but the one thing in prospect : 
the recovery of the box of banknotes. 

Out of the rush of the current he found a 
little cove where weeping willows dipped their 
myriad fingers in the water and here he tied 
up. After scrambling up the steep bank he 
waited under the trees till it was nearly 
twelve o’clock, hearing nothing but the mur- 
mur of the river and the occasional barking of 
dogs with now and then some indistinguish- 
able sound from the sleeping village. 

When he reached Lagville — which for only 


229 


230 


The Picture on the Wall 


a few weeks had known the passing of his 
feet, but for three years had been the setting 
of his fondest dreams — how dear to him was 
every brick of the humblest walls, every plank 
of the rattling sidewalks! The trees that 
lined the streets on either hand sighed in the 
warm wind for the summers that were spent, 
and John sighed with them, thinking that days 
could never come like the days that were gone. 

As he passed under a street arc-light, echoes 
rang along the shopfronts, clapping sounds, 
startling as pistol shots produced merely by 
the approach of a single figure. John hastened 
toward the pedestrian in order to get the light 
at his back. Nearer, he recognized Eugene 
Ware. 

Ware, knowing street-passers in Lagville at 
so late an hour were extremely rare, stared 
curiously at John, seeing only a fellow dressed 
as a day-laborer with a spade over his shoul- 
der. He uttered a perfunctory greeting which 
was returned with gruff indistinctness. 

John’s first thrill of suspense was gone, but 
he turned off at the first corner to make his 
way toward the residential district, leaving 
Ware well on his way to his hotel lodgings. 

When the Warring residence came in sight 
he would not permit himself to dwell on the 
day of his first arrival, a fugitive adventurer; 
and after he had climbed the side-fence into 
the garden he resisted the desire to linger for 
a time in the summer house where Lucia and 
he had talked for the last time at just such an 
hour of the night. 

Moving with infinite caution — for a light 
was burning its warning from the sitting-room 
— he crept to the shrubbery in which he had 
left the box of banknotes safely buried. Nat- 
urally he was tormented by doubts and fears. 


The Picture on the Wall 231 

Of course Glaxton had secured the secret key 
hidden behind the landscape painting, and Mr. 
Warring had explained its purpose. The law- 
yer was sure that John ^had dug up the box 
from under the summerhouse floor and dis- 
posed of it. Glaxton had argued that the rea- 
son for Simmons^ dismissal on the night of Mr. 
Warring’s journey had been for the purpose 
of giving John a free field. Had he suspected 
that the box remained on the premises? In 
that case, he and Simmons must have dug in 
the garden from one end to the other. 

Although it was quite dark, John did not 
hesitate, except to avoid making a noise as he 
pushed his way through the thorny brambles 
to the center of the clump of bushes. He be- 
gan to dig very gently, while the rushing mur- 
mur of the wind in trees and undergrowth 
filled his ears. The steady light from the 
downstairs window watched like a relentless 
eye. It seemed to him a long time, though it 
was not long, before the blade of his spade 
smote against a metallic surface. At the con- 
tact there came a wrenching of his nerves as if 
the iron had struck into his flesh. The box was 
there. Had it rested undisturbed for three 
years in its place, or had Glaxton found and 
emptied it, and left it in mockery? 

He drew it from the hole, brushed away the 
dirt and tried to test it in his anxious hand. 
It seemed as heavy as it had been. No — yes. 
Certainly it was not empty. And not certain- 
ly, either, for the metal was heavy. And pa- 
per of no value might have been substituted 
for the fifty thousand dollars. The desire was 
almost irresistible to force open the box with 
the edge of the spade and make sure of his 
success or failure. But he checked the im- 
pulse. How could he know that somebody 


232 


The Picture on the Wall 


was not in the garden at this moment — pos- 
sibly sitting in the summerhouse? And that 
warning light told him that the household was 
not asleep. If any one should surprise him 
in the shrubbery kneeling over the box with 
the banknotes lying in counted piles upon the 
ground — How cold and hard seemed to him the 
light glaring from across the lawn! 

He weighed the box first in one hand then in 
the other and decided it was lighter than when 
he drew it from Mr. Warring’s trunk. After 
all, there was only one thing to do, and to 
delay in carrying away the box might involve 
him in irreparable trouble. While drifting 
down the river in his boat he could examine its 
contents in reasonable security. 

He thrust the spade well under the shrub- 
bery, thinking he could have no further use 
of it, and was feeling his way to the open 
ground, still, however, with undiminished cau- 
tion, when the front door of the house was 
thrown open and two men stepped out upon 
the porch. For a moment the hall-light was 
full upon them; they were men each in his 
way so individual that John even at that dis- 
tance had no difiSculty in recognizing Glaxton 
with his dark smile, immensely at his ease, 
and Blearstead, his features writhing and 
twisting in the stress of passion. 

They turned for a moment before coming 
out upon the lawn and their faces were bright- 
ly illuminated. To John, the man of refine- 
ment was the more contemptible. In his crim- 
inal nature was a loathsome calculation un- 
known to the brutal highwayman. Blearstead 
could not have disguised his enmity long 
enough to overcome an enemy by guile. He 
could take a life to save his own or to gratify 
a blind spasm of rage, but he could not com- 


The Picture on the Wall 


233 


mit murder with the bloodless deliberation 
John believed Glaxton had exercised toward 
his benefactor. He recalled Glaxton’s dark 
malignancy while dropping the secret drug — 
surely it was poison — into the invalid’s night- 
glass. Thinking of that night, Glaxton’s smil- 
ing countenance now oppressed him with the 
sickness of strong revulsion. The very hand- 
someness of his face and delicate grace of his 
movements caused him instinctively to press 
back among the bushes as from something un- 
clean. 

Glaxton, followed sullenly by Blearstead, led 
the way across the lawn to the garden. John 
heard his contemptuous bidding — 

‘‘Finish what you have to say out here. You 
are so noisy the servants will think the house 
full of bandits.” 

John reached stealthily for the spade that 
he might, in case of need, have a silent weapon 
of defense. 

Though of the two men the lawyer was the 
more despicable, Blearstead was by far the 
more dangerously violent and John wondered 
at the lawyer’s temerity in wantonly provoking 
him, attributing it to a singular lack of per- 
ception in one who had always appeared as- 
tute. 

“I don’t care who hears me,” Blearstead 
ejaculated with the loud blustering John knew 
so well. “This thing has got to come to a 
point, Glaxton. I’ve been to your house as 
often as I want to come.” 

“A good deal often than my wishes,” re- 
marked the other. 

“And it ain’t safe for me, either. I tell you, 
this has got to end.” 

“I agree most heartily.” 

“And after I get here you put me off and 


234 


The Picture on the Wall 


put me off — I hardly know how. But when 
I get back home and think it over, I see all 
your dope isn’t nothing but wind. Bring it 
to a point, Glaxton.” 

“I’ll do it, my man ; I’ll end it for you right 
now.” 

“But for me,” Blearstead rumbled on, too 
cumbrous and self-centered to notice the oth- 
er’s words or manner, “you’d be out of all 
— this — I mean, your house, your lands, your 
money. What would you a-got if it hadn’t 
been me told you John was not a Warring? 
This property would a-gone to him, and him 
and me would have shared it together.” 

“He refused to share with you,” Glaxton 
said lightly. “That’s why you took me in as 
your partner; because he wouldn’t play your 
game.” 

“You’d never once a-guessed that he wasn’t 
Warring’s flesh-and-blood heir. It was me 
made you wise to them facts. Of course you 
was stealing all you could up to then, but you 
couldn’t have gobbled up the whole million 
without me. And I’m going to have my 
share !” 

“I’ve given you more than you deserved. Af- 
ter all, what did you do but tell the truth? 
And, if it comes to that, what was the truth? 
— that you patched up a rascally plan with 
your nephew and gave him the baby-clothes 
that belonged to a dead child. As for your 
claim that the nursemaid drowned the infant, 
and that you got the suitcase from your broth- 
er, I’ve no doubt that you yourself were the 
kidnapper, and that you, not the nursery maid, 
killed the helpless innocent. No, you’ve been 
paid all you’re going to get. The fact is, I 
ought to put you behind the bars where you 
belong. Just go ahead and tell the authori- 


The Picture on the Wall 


235 


ties how you and Cleek cooked up that con- 
spiracy, and see what happens to you! Yes, 
I’ll bring things to a point. This ends it, my 
friend.” 

Blearstead uttered a furious oath. “You 
think I can’t do anything to you. That’s 
where you’re wrong, Edgar Glaxton. I can 
do something to you, all right, and I’m going 
to do it right now.” 

John, familiar with all of Blearstead’s 
moods, was thrilled by the conviction that 
Glaxton’s last hour had struck. But he re- 
mained perfectly motionless, not so much for 
concealment as to let justice take its course. 

“Get off my grounds,” Glaxton said scorn- 
fully. “What have I to fear from a coward 
like you? Miserable creature, you wouldn’t 
dare lift your coarse hand against one so much 
better than you. Dust of my feet, leave the 
place at once before I drag you to the ditch.” 
He laughed maddeningly. “You poor brag- 
gart! There is so much of you that you look 
like a man; but in body and spirit you’re 
nothing but a beast.” 

Blearstead gave a mad bellow as if to cor- 
roborate this description and bent his head to 
rush furiously forward. But at the same mo- 
ment a club from behind descended upon his 
head with a sickening thud.. 

John had been too much engrossed in wait- 
ing for Glaxton’s downfall to observe a tall, 
thin form slip from the greater darkness of 
the summerhouse. 

“Beat him up, Simmons,” said Glaxton with 
a cruel laugh, “but be sure not to kill him.” 

John now understood that Glaxton had 
goaded the man to fury in order to make him 
insensible to Simmons’ approach. 

“Drag him to the summerhouse,” Glaxton 


236 


The Picture on the Wall 


went on coolly, ‘‘and tie him so he can’t move. 
But there’s no use to gag him — no danger of 
the fellow’s calling for help. I’d sit in there 
with him to make sure of his entertainment, 
but I find his nearness distasteful to me. 
When he’s secured, go for the sheriff as we 
planned yesterday, but I wouldn’t be in too 
great a hurry. He might as well have a quiet 
half-hour to meditate on the nice home the 
State is going to give him for a good many 
years. I’ll go to the house and smoke a cigar 
— is he hearing me?” 

“Yes, sir, he’s at himself.” 

“I’ll smoke a good cigar and look over my 
papers — the deeds to my property, the title to 
this estate, the mortgages on nearby farms. 
I wish I could have satisfied the fellow, but 
the more he has, the more he wants. Simmons, 
I was so delighted when the creature told me 
John Walters was an imposter that out of my 
impulsiveness — And I’m not naturally impul- 
sive, am I, Simmons?” 

“I don’t know exactly what that is, sir, but 
I don’t expect you are, sir.” 

“I should have had him thrown in jail then 
and there,” Glaxton mused regretfully, “but 
I was so grateful for the news that I weakened. 
Let this be a lesson to you, Simmons: never 
let your gratitude get the better of your judg- 
ment.” 

“Yes, sir; thank you, sir.” 

Blearstead made a movement to rise and 
the club descended mercilessly. He fell back 
with a heavy groan. 

“Now,” Simmons snarled, “will you lie 
quiet?” 

In spite of the injury done him, John’s in- 
dignation was stirred hotly. “After all,” he 


The Picture on the Wall 237 

thought, ‘‘he is my uncle — and Glaxton is a 
murderer.” 

“Don’t kill him, Simmons,” Glaxton said, 
strolling toward the house. “A corpse is one 
of the most awkward mementoes to dispose of 
you ever saw.” 

In the dense gloom, Simmons muttered, 
“I’ll beat you within an inch of your life if 
you give me any more trouble.’^ He began 
dragging the huge form toward the summer- 
house. 

Apparently Blearstead was passive in his 
hands for no sound of blows came to John 
and presently he saw Simmons slinking away 
in the direction of town. He had gone for 
the sheriff. Glaxton was already in the house 
and a shade had been dropped over the light 
at the window ; he was overlooking his papers. 
The garden-silence was undisturbed. 

After the briefest interval of caution, John, 
with the tin box safe in his bosom, slipped to 
the summerhouse and explored in the darkness 
for the body of his uncle. Blearstead was se- 
cured by arms and legs to an upright in the 
wall of the structure. He did not move or 
utter a sound, thinking, no doubt, that Sim- 
mons had returned to gloat over his helpless- 
ness. 

“Know my voice?” John whispered. Blear- 
stead quivered from head to foot, fearfully 
shaken by recognition of his deliverer. “Don’t 
be afraid,” John added, meantime severing 
the bandages; “there was a time when I 
thought that if I could get you tied up as you 
are now, it would start my millennium. 
But somehow, now that the thing has happened 
to you, it makes my blood boil. You have done 
everything in your power to destroy me, but 
the power simply wasn’t yours to finish the 


238 


The Picture on the Wall 


job. Then you tried to sell me into bondage, 
but Joseph wouldn’t stay in the pit. After all, 
you aren’t not the meanest man on earth; 
you’ll have to give the blue ribbon to Glaxton 
and just wear the red. And besides, you are 
mother’s brother. And there you are, free. 
And not much time to lose! Can you walk? 
I’m afraid you’re pretty badly beaten up. 
Lean on me.” 

Blearstead grunted hoarsely. “Do you mean 
it, kid?” 

“Just like that.” 

To Blearstead, the thing was incomprehen- 
sible but he recognized sincerity in the other’s 
voice and made no delay in taking advantage of 
the opportunity. 

He leaned on the proffered arm, and limped 
out into the garden, choking back a groan. 
“Where are you going, boy?” 

“Where you are not. I’m getting you off 
free, but I’m under no delusions about you, 
uncle. You’ll have to travel alone.” 

“Guess I can make it,” the big fellow mut- 
tered with a plaintive quality in his voice 
which struck John as grotesquely pathetic as 
if, for all his bulk and long career of evil-do- 
ing, he was after all but an overgrown boy. 
“Kid, you’ll never be sorry for this.” 

John said cheerfully, “I know you’d sell me 
out tomorrow if you had the chance, but I’m 
counting on the same Old Mrs. Luck that 
rocked my cradle to keep me from putting your 
gratitude to the test. Careful over this fence 
— better throw more weight on me, I’ve been 
soldiering and know how to bear up. Give my 
regards to Bettie. And tell her father and 
Cleek that if famine gets in the land and they 
have to come down into Egypt for com, ask 
for Pharaoh’s right-hand man and see what he 


The Picture on the Wall 


239 


has for ’em. Do you get that Biblical line, 
uncle?” 

Blearstead gave a hoarse sound not to be 
definitely classified. After they had reached 
the end of the street he said, ^^I’m afraid I’m 
pretty badly in, John. But if anything could 
have braced me up, you’d a*done it!” 

^‘Look here,” John suddenly determined, 
‘^I’m going to give you a sure way of getting 
away. I came in a boat, and I’ll skip out the 
best way I can. I’m tough and young and 
the boat is yours. I’ll get you to the river be- 
fore Glaxton has half finished his cigar.” 


CHAPTER XXXI 

LUCIA ON THE WAGON-BRIDGE 

Having learned from Tredmill exactly when 
Lucia was accustomed, on her return from 
teaching school, to cross the wagon-bridge in 
the maple grove, John posted himself there 
about four o’clock in the afternoon and at 
last had the joy of seeing her dear form swing- 
ing along the country road. 

Though the grove touched the border of the 
little Kansas town, it wore an air of singular 
remoteness, where somehow the singing of birds 
sounded louder than the hammering on an an- 
vil and the sawing of wood that came from 
not distant streets. Through the branches 
could be seen a red blur which on closer in- 
spection proved a brick church, while high up 
among the birdnests a pool of water shining 
in the light and seemingly caught in the crotch 
of a tree — that was some distant window in 
the east, answering back the taunting sun. 
But despite these glimpses and the calling of 
children at play, John felt that Lucia was en- 
tering into an island solitude to share with 
him its May loveliness. 

She looked tired yet he knew it was less 
than a mile from her county school to lodgings 
at the minister’s. Doubtless there were 
troublesome pupils under her care — was there 
ever a district school that had not among its 
number at least one child to embitter the 
flavor of the day’s work? And of course the 
close of school never finds a teacher with the 
springiness of nerves that react to the first 
months of mental labor. 


240 


The Picture on the Wall 241 

His heart yearned over the tired girl. Of 
course there was comfort in the thought that 
vacation days were at hand, but it was now 
that her limbs moved languidly, now that her 
face showed pallor beneath the bright tresses 
and now that he had loved her as he had never 
loved before, and realized as never before how 
she had been beaten to earth by his betrayal 
of her trust. 

Lucia was startled at sight of a soldier on 
the bridge. She had seen kahki everywhere 
else without once looking for John in the uni- 
form, but now, oddly enough, the waiting 
figure caused her to think of Lagville. She no 
longer looked for John. At first she had been 
terribly afraid lest Glaxton should find him, 
later had despaired of any one finding him. 
He might be dead. If living, how could he dare 
Glaxton’s remorseless enmity by showing him- 
self? And certainly he could not be standing 
there on the bridge watching her as if she 
were a broken fragment of his heart that need- 
ed only being fitted back to make his being 
complete. 

Then all at once like the rushing of a warm 
wind across the earth that late frosts have 
chilled came the certitude that once at least 
in life the brightest dream is not too bright to 
come true; and her face showed gladness like 
the glow of a perfect rose after the dash of 
summer rain has passed. 

He hardly knew how he had expected to be 
received ; apologetic phrases, sentences of 
eager deprecation and excuse had floated 
vaguely in his mind. Whatever might be said 
in his defense, the truth remained that he had 
not scrupled to deceive her in the intimacy 
of the home. Yet she looked glad. 

‘‘Lucia — the imposter has come.” 


242 


The Picture on the Wall 


was an imposter too,” she flashed, her 
hand in his. 

^Wes — but YOU believed yourself to be his 
daughter; and I knew.” 

^‘You were as much kin to him as I,” she in- 
sisted. All his forebodings had been needless. 
She was just glad. It was worth much — it 
was worth everything to have a friend like 
Lucia! He had withheld confidences, he had 
been obliged to let the years slip by, but the 
Lucia of his farewell and the Lucia of his 
greeting was the same girl. 

“Virgie told me.” he stammered, hardly con- 
scious of his words, so amazing was the won- 
der of her unchangeableness. ‘That^s what 
brings me back. You’ve lost everything. Oh, 
Lucia, you are so thin! She told me about 
that school. It gave me the courage to come 
to you. How could I stay away? May I stay 
now ?” 

She leaned against the bridge’s huge invert- 
ed “V” and looked at him fixedly, whispering, 
^‘But you wouldn’t dare.” 

“Why not? — now that Glaxton has every- 
thing? He’d commit any crime for property, 
but I’m not in his way. He’s a miser. He 
wouldn’t spend his money to run down a man 
not in his way. I don’t believe he knows what 
genuine hatred is; he’s just a mountain of 
self-interest. We’re exactly where he wants 
us — out of the house that is yours by right. 
As long as he is left in peace to enjoy the 
fruits of his murder — it comes to that — I have 
nothing to fear. If you had your rights, there 
in Lagville, or if we hadn’t learned the facts 
about your parentage, oh, Lucia, you’d never 
have seen me again!” 

She looked over the railing with her gaze 
on the slender stream trickling over its shelv- 


The Picture on the Wall 


243 


ing bed. “Why?’’ she murmured protestingly. 

“But I was the imposter! You, the heiress 
could have had nothing to do with a homeless 
wanderer, a false claimant.” There was si- 
lence between them while the stream laughed 
over the ledges. Then he exclaimed, “Now 
that you have been robbed of everything that 
makes life easy I have come; and I can tell 
you what couldn’t be told in your home — I 
mean, about my love — ” 

There was a breathless pause, then Lucia 
raised her head to look at him while blushes 
dyed her cheeks. And he saw the answer to 
the question still struggling in his heart. The 
stream laughed musically over the tiny water- 
falls and bubbled away to green meadows. 
The occupants of the desert island were in 
each other’s arms. 

“Oh, John,” she murmured, “you are so 
noble !” 

“Noble?” He was bewildered. 

“Yes.” She looked up at him, then dropped 
her eyes, then again let him see the glory of 
her love shining in her sky of blue. “You 
never took advantage of my ignorance, not 
once. I thought sisters felt as I felt; and I 
am so proud of you — it makes me know how 
fully you are to be trusted that not once — 
no, not once — ” 

Then he did. Many times. 

They walked up and down the bridge exact- 
ly as if there were no road across it to some- 
where. Sometimes they paused to lean over 
the railing; it was like magic to see their 
two faces in the water desolve into a com- 
posite picture. Nobody came. How kind fate 
can sometimes be! Is it to disarm us that we 
may forget how keen may fall her thrust? 


244 


The Picture on the Wall 


The wagon-bridge seemed built for two pairs 
of feet that had nowhere to go. 

How much there was to be said — how many 
reminiscences, how many plans! And how 
many times must be repeated the wonder of 
their happiness, the pledge of their future! 
Of course they had their dreams to exchange. 

can’t help hoping,” he said, ‘‘that your 
father — no. I’ll call him our father, since he 
belongs equally to us both — that our father 
made a will after all, and some day it will be 
unearthed, and you’ll have everything.” 

“Mr. Glaxton would destroy it.” 

“It might be hidden away in a strong box 
at the bank,” John protested. 

“Father — our father — wouldn’t have dared 
hide it in the bank, because Mr. Glaxton knew 
all his business there. If there was a will it 
might be — ” she smiled at the conceit — “buried 
in the garden, let us say, at dead of night, in 
some secret spot.” 

“Lucia,” he exclaimed, “you’re half a witch. 
You’ve almost surprised my great secret. I 
reached town today at an early hour and kept 
out of sight till you had left for school. Then 
I descended upon Brother Tredmill and Alice 
with a certain box that your father and I hid 
as you described. There wasn’t a will in it; 
we may find a will later. I hope so. But the 
box wasn’t empty. At Brother Tredmill’s ad- 
vice, I deposited its contents in an Ottawa 
bank, getting back about an hour ago.” 

He handed her a deposit slip. 

“But what does it mean?” she gasped. 
“John, what does it mean?” 

“It means, darling Lucia, that we are not 
going to teach school a great deal. And I 
don’t think Virgie will wear out her fingers at 


The Picture on the Wall 


245 


a typewriter. Oh, it means a thousand things! 
For one thing, we are to be absolutely happy. 
Lucia, it isn’t every love story that ends with 
fifty thousand dollars!” 


CHAPTER XXXII 

BY WAY OP POST-SCRIPT 

The world had forgotten John and Lucia — 
happy John and Lucia! Interest in individ- 
uals no matter how picturesque had been en- 
gulfed in deeper absorption in international 
affairs. 

Even in Lagville, people, grown accus- 
tomed to seeing Glaxton moving about the 
Warring yard and garden and looking from the 
Warring doors and windows, allowed the story 
of the bold imposter to fade from mind. If 
there had been whispers of tamperings with 
mortgages, of the stretching of power of at- 
torney, of designs upon a defenseless old man, 
they were heard no more. 

Pity for the adopted daughter whose adop- 
tion had not been legalized persisted, but only 
among those who disliked the usurper. And 
this pity, warm and sincere as in some cases 
it was, led to no act looking toward Lucia’s 
relief. One did not know what had become of 
her except, vaguely, that she ^‘was living with 
Alice,” and was obliged to work for a living. 

She had been such a sweet girl, unspoiled by 
wealth or position, full of cheerful sprightli- 
ness, kindly, compassionate. Having every- 
thing, she had not reminded you by so much as 
an air that you were a poor scrubby wretch 
dodging and racing along on borrowed capital. 
And now stripped of all that had made up her 
life, it really seemed that something should be 
done to give her a footing in the world of work 
and disillusionment. 


246 


The Picture on the Wall 247 

But of course one did nothing ; one had one^s 
own troubles, one’s own self to take care of. 
Besides, there was the preacher who had been 
dismissed because nothing could keep him from 
stirring to the light town evils instead of leav- 
ing the sediment at the bottom of casual af- 
fairs — he and his bride, if what one heard was 
true, had opened their doors to the dispos- 
sessed. 

Some sympathy Lucia had forfeited by her 
treatment of Eugene Ware. He was related 
to almost every family in Lagville that mat- 
tered. Pobr Eugene! He was married now, 
married to a girl of very little money but with 
what everybody agreed to be a good complex- 
ion. She would never have anything like that 
which Lucia should have inherited, — or even 
was born with; for when in speaking of her 
looks complexion was said, all was said. And 
it was not as if Eugene had refused to give 
Lucia a last chance. Even after it appeared 
that Glaxton would get everything, he had re- 
newed his offer of marriage. That she should 
refuse him then had seemed preposterous. 
W^hat did she expect? 

Eugene Ware had been treated badly, and 
naturally his relatives never thought of Lucia 
without thinking of that. It would not be fair 
to any of these to say that in Lagville there 
was rejoicing over the downfall of the heiress; 
but since destiny had seen to her punishment 
without asking assistance, it did a good deal 
to reconcile one to the meager bank account 
that came with that complexion. 

In the meantime, John and Lucia were mar- 
ried. They had not waited one day after the 
closing of the district school. Why should 
they with fifty thousand dollars in the bank 


248 


The Picture on the Wall 


and their hearts full of love? Few lovers have 
waited so long! 

The ceremony was as quiet as possible. 
Though convinced that Glaxton would not 
again try to run him down, there is nothing to 
be gained in tempting the devil to do his worst. 
Tredmill performed the ceremony with zest suf- 
ficient to indicate that a similar occasion had 
left him undismayed though then he enacted 
one of the leading roles. Immediately after 
the ceremony the bridal pair left for Mexico 
without rice. 

John hoped beyond the border to take up 
some of the threads torn from his hands by 
the War and, after all, it was possible that his 
wife, in spite of the obscurity of the little Kan- 
sas town, might have attracted dangerous at- 
tention from which the mountains would offer 
safe retreat. 

Several months after the wedding, the Pev. 
Tredmill received the following letter from the 
Lagville sheriff: 

“Dear Brother Tredmill: 

“It is very important, as the inclosure will 
show you, to find out as soon as possible what 
has become of John Walters. We have sent 
out tracers in every direction and are hoping 
that you know something of his whereabouts 
for I remember he was one of your friends dur- 
ing the church trouble. I hope you got a good 
job where you are and everything pleasant. I 
voted against you as you know, but it was to 
keep peace. We haven’t any preacher now but 
we are united. And please tell me what you 
can about John Walters. Wire his address. 
Of course you read in the papers about Glax- 
ton getting shot through the heart and dying 
on the spot, and how Simmons winged his at- 
tacker. The fellow that killed Glaxton and 


The Picture on the Wall 


249 


got shot by Simmons to death’s door is named 
Blearstead. The inclosure is Blearstead’s dy- 
ing statement, I mean, a copy of the same. 
Wire me if yon can shed any light on John 
Walters’ hiding-out place.” 

As Tredmill had not heard of the Lagville 
tragedy he was intensely excited and called 
Alice to read with him the typewritten docu- 
ment claiming to be a copy of the original man- 
uscript in the office of the prosecuting attor- 
ney: 

“Jim Blearstead now at point of death from 
a bullet fired by Simmons to avenge the death 
of Glaxton at Blearstead’s hands, asks me. Bob 
Plackett, sheriff of Lagville County of the 
State of Missouri, in the presence of the wit- 
nesses signed below, to take down his dying 
statement made in due form by his own free 
will at his request, under oath, as follows, to- 
wit : 

“John Walters thinks I’m his uncle which 
right there he has another guess coming. He 
thinks the woman who raised him from a baby 
was his mother and a sister of me, wrong again. 
That woman was the nursemaid at Warring’s 
when his baby was abducted, and her and me is 
who done it, us no kin but working together 
for the dough we never got. I never meant no 
real harm. We was going to squeeze the old 
man for what juice there was in him, then 
hand back the kid as safe as a safety-pin. But 
the cops butted in and it was a scream whether 
the kid or us was going to be up in the air. 
It got so hot for us that I decided to throw 
the kid in the river for I dasn’t be found with 
him about, so there simply wasn’t nothing else 
to be done as you can see for yourself though 
hating it like the devil for if there’s anybody 
got a heart it’s Blearstead. Nothing vicious 


250 


The Picture on the Wall 


or low about me. But Lizzie White — thafs 
the maid — disappeared with the kid ; sloped in 
order to save his life, for give him back she 
couldn’t without putting her neck in the pen. 
Or the noose. She’d a-restored him if she’d 
dared. She was that weak. As weak a 
woman to tackle an iron-hard job like that I 
never met or hope to. But listen to me talking 
about hoping to meet anybody! I know my 
checks are all in with my balance in red. It’s 
just a habit a fellow has of saying things. If 
I could have another chance I’d show you a 
different man before I died. But what’s the 
use? I never found a trace to Lizzie White 
till three years ago when she was living in 
Kansas City calling herself Ann Walters. I 
claimed her as my sister Ann and she couldn’t 
kick out of the traces for I had the goods on 
her. But she didn’t live an awful long time 
after that. What I wanted wasn’t to harm her 
which I didn’t, but to work the boy for the 
heir-scheme ; which I done. I found her taking 
in all kinds of hand-work, bound and deter- 
mined to make a gentleman out of the boy for 
to ease her conscience. She couldn’t give him 
back to his dad though she ’lowed to leave a 
letter telling all, on her death. I ain’t saying 
she changed her mind, but maybe I done away 
with the letter. Anyway she killed herself 
making John a gentleman which he was by 
nature ; as I may say, if you can get me, it was 
blowed in the bottle. I saw she was wasting 
away to fatten her conscience and I tried to 
show her how she was wrong, and that life is 
give us for living. It wasn’t no use, she died, 
and the boy wouldn’t take to my line of busi- 
ness. I got a strangle-holt on him by putting 
him in a bad light and then, to get shed of 
the cops, he consented to pretend to be what 


The Picture on the Wall 


251 


he was all along, you know: Warring’s son. 
But he wouldn’t divvy up with me on the old 
man’s spuds, so I tried to wring it out of 
Glaxton. He couldn’t be wrung and that’s 
why I done for him, and glad of it, he de- 
served no less. I got to tell you that there 
was one time when Glaxton would of doused 
my glim if it hadn’t been for John. He cut 
the ropes and right on top of my giving him 
away, so I told him he’d never be sorry for it 
and I bet you he never ain’t. This here state- 
ment will show him what I meant by them 
words though if he hadn’t shown me that good 
streak when I needed it, I’d have caved in with 
all this unsaid and it would have been good- 
night for him. But this will put him on Easy 
Street and whenever he thinks of me he can’t 
help but know that there was some good in me 
after all and if I’d had half a chance I’d a-made 
good yet. But the doctor says it’s no use. 
And I feel it coming on, like a cold river roll- 
ing up about my neck. If I could have had 
another chance — there’s a good deal in me you 
can’t see, but I know it’s there. And John’ll 
know it. And let him be told that every word 
I speak now is cutting me like a knife. There 
was a lot of good in Blearstead, but I wouldn’t 
let it come out; I seemed ashamed of it, some- 
how; I’m awful proud of every good bit of 
me now, captain! If I could live, I’d let the 
good come out and if there’s a God let Him 
take due notice and act according. If proofs 
of what I’m a-telling are wanting, well, a man 
about to die ain’t liable to hand out a cooked- 
up story, is he? However that may be, there’s 
a family living in a houseboat named Hode. 
Mrs. Hode got the whole story from the nurse- 
maid, but her man. Tacky Hode, won’t let her 
tell it, because he’s laying to make something 


252 


The Picture on the Wall 


out of the secret. But they got a girl, and a 
good straight one, named Bettie. She got the 
story from her ma. John will know how to 
find them. Of course nobody would a-paid any 
attention to them spouting out this history on 
their own hook, but put my dying words along- 
side and we have what we call testimony, what? 
Also a pugilist named Cleek living in Smiling 
Lane; I’ve done told him the whole story. Ask 
him. Now that’s all. I’m Jim Blearstead and 
I’m glad I killed him. I wish I had done more 
good acts in my life, but I hope this will count 
pretty high. As to that scum Simmons, as 
I wasn’t making any attack on him, and had 
but the kindest feelings for him apart from the 
way he served me one night, what he done was 
cold-blooded murder and I hope he gets all 
that’s a-coming to him. 

‘‘Signed, Jim Blearstead. 

“We the undersigned being present while 
Jim Blearstead dictated the above, and being 
duly sworn, testify that the foregoing is a full 
and exact and literal reproduction of the dy- 
ing statement of the said Jim Blearstead. 

“Hiram Dudley, 
“Whitsett Dobbs, 
“Eugene Ware.” 

In a storm of tempestuous joy Alice and the 
Rev. Harry Tredmill caught each other about 
the neck. You would have thought that 
through the discovery of a Warring will, the 
Warring fortune w^as coming to them! 

“I must wire the sheriff at once.” Tred- 
mill took several steps which from any one but 
a minister must have suggested the idea of 
dancing. “And I must wire him — John Wal- 
ters — no, John Lyle Warring, not an imposter 
after all, bless his heart! but the original ar- 
ticle; the Warring heir, owner of the Lagville 


The Picture on the Wall 


253 


home — and all those farms and properties. . . ’’ 

He gave Alice a parting kiss then rushed to 
find his hat; not the one he wore about the 
premises, but the carefully preserved hat with 
only one spot which, by virtue of its prestige 
derived from journeyings beyond the front gate, 
was known — only, however, to its owner — as 
“the new hat.^’ 

Alice kept close upon his footsteps, talking 
all the time; and when he was in the yard and 
she knew he must soon be beyond hearing she 
called her last words with passionate convic- 
tion: 

“I knew from the first that he looked exactly 
like the picture on the wallT’ 


The End. 






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